


Duality

by lastincurableromantic



Series: The Slow Path [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, F/M, Humor, Parallel Universe, Romance, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastincurableromantic/pseuds/lastincurableromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Tenth Doctor's life spirals out of control, the part human Doctor's life becomes more settled. But will prophecies in both universes as well as a telepathic bond between the two threaten everything the part human Doctor and Rose are trying to build in Pete's World?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of two sequels to Entanglement. I had originally planned on writing one longer sequel, but I decided it works better as two shorter pieces. Chronologically it follows Entanglement, Dreaming in Color and Wide Awake in my Slow Path 'verse.

**Duality**

_Dual (adjective) consisting of two parts, elements, or aspects_

_Duality (noun) 1. the state or condition of being dual. 2. an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something; a dualism_

**Prologue**

_Three months ago …_

_Dr. Frank Collins pulled out a small, square battery out of his pocket, one the Doctor and Rose both recognized as containing the unbonded Kern. As he carried over to Rose, it began to glow with a faint blue light._

_"Fight it, Rose!" the Doctor yelled. "I know you can do it!"_

_As Collins approached, holding out the battery, Rose tried to back away from him, but with her ankles fastened to the chair it was a futile gesture. As the battery grew near, the blue light of the Kern grew stronger. It began to arch towards her hand, and when it touched her fingertips it disappeared. She felt the energy of the Kern surge through her and through a haze of blue she saw the Doctor struggle against his restraints._

_"No! Rose, fight it! I know you can!"_

_Rose shook with the effort to fight off the Kern, her body tense and her face screwed up with the effort. She took several deep breaths and then exhaled hard, as if she were trying to blow them out of her body. After several unsuccessful attempts, she collapsed against the back of her chair, exhausted by the effort._

_"Rose." She heard desperation in the Doctor's voice. "Don't give up. Do whatever you have to do to fight it."_

_"I'm sorry," she mouthed to him. She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them she felt a surge of energy go through her body. In an instant she saw Dr. Collins fly several feet backwards. He landed on the floor with his neck in an unnatural position. His eyes were fixed and unseeing, and the skin of his face and hands looked red, almost as if he had received a bad sunburn._

In her bed Rose tossed and turned, and the dream changed, the images within shifted.

_From within the small glass-enclosed booth that held the dimension cannon, Rose could see Mickey sitting at the computerized controls on the other side of the room. Next to him stood Jake on one side and Pete on the other. All three of them were intently staring at the display in front of them. As one they all turned and looked at her. She nodded and Mickey turned back to the controls. He pressed a button, a big red button, and then she felt the now familiar sting of the translation across the Void._

_She found herself exactly where she expected to be, on a busy street in Chiswick. A crowd had gathered around a large truck parked in the middle of the road._

_"Let me through," she said and pushed her way through the mass of people, only to see Donna lying in the center of the road._

_"She just appeared outa nowhere," a man, presumably the truck driver, said to someone behind her. "Walked right in front'a me. I swear, I tried to stop…"_

_Rose didn't listen to the response. Instead she knelt beside the older woman._

_"Tell him," she said. "Make sure you tell him… bad wolf."_

_Donna nodded. "I'll tell him," she whispered with her dying breath. "And I'll make sure to tell him that you killed me."_

Rose woke with a start, breathing heavily, heart pounding wildly in her chest. To her relief, the Doctor was sleeping quietly next to her. She hadn't woken him up with her nightmares again.

Since the death of Torchwood's former medical officer, her nightmares had returned with a vengeance. She hadn't meant to kill Frank Collins; she had been fighting off an attack of an alien life form, and he had been caught in the powerful energy wave that her body had produced. And even if she had intended to kill him, since he had been responsible for the alien attempting to take over her, it would have clearly been a case of self-defense.

But even though during the light of day she knew that she wasn't guilty of murdering him, he was still dead, and the sight of his dead body haunted her dreams.

The Doctor didn't blame her. If anything, he blamed himself for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the only reason she had been able to produce the energy wave in the first place was because he hadn't managed to remove all of the artron energy from her body after she had absorbed the Time Vortex.

But Collins hadn't been the only person she had killed. She had been responsible for the death of Toby, who had been possessed at the time, and on her watch a team member working on the dimension cannon had been killed.

And then there was Donna.

She had told him about Donna just last night. That she had discovered the pocket universe created around her and had knowingly sent her to her death to end it. And as much as he tried to reassure her, as much as he reminded her that Donna was alive and well, as much as he told her that the pocket universe had had to end, that Donna's decision had been her own and it wasn't Rose's fault, his face was so full of pain she couldn't bear to look at it.

And even though he said he didn't blame her, Rose still blamed herself.

~oOo~

_Two months ago …_

_Rose suddenly found herself standing in the shadows on a narrow street near the Thames. She quickly glanced around, trying to figure out exactly where, and when, she was. In front of her, a large crowd had gathered, and Rose stood on her tiptoes to try to see what they were all looking at. Beyond the crowd, the area had been cordoned off, and the London police swarmed over the area, their yellow vests reflecting the light from the lampposts._

_From where she stood, she could see members of the military were also at the scene, their uniforms and red berets identifying them as UNIT troops. They were examining a tall, blue box that stood on the side of the road. She could tell they were trying to get in, but she knew that they'd never be able to, not in a million years. The combined hordes of Genghis Kahn hadn't been able to breach those doors, and neither would UNIT troops._

_She looked quickly around, trying to spot among the swarm of police vests and UNIT uniforms a brown trench coat, a brown pinstriped suit, or dark brown hair. To her disappointment, she couldn't see anyone resembling the owner of the blue box._

_Rose made her way slowly through the crowd, trying in vain to spot him. He has to be here, she thought. The TARDIS is here. He has to be here somewhere._

_Donna stood off to the side of the scene, watching with the other onlookers. She moved closer to her, but then she spotted the body on a gurney, an arm hanging off over the side. Although it was mostly covered by a red blanket, she could still see a hand and part of the sleeve of what looked like a dark colored suit jacket. Below the hand, lying on the ground, was something that looked like a silver rod._

_But Rose recognized it. She knew it wasn't simply a silver rod._

_It was the Doctor's sonic screwdriver._

_"No," she said softly._

_Rose staggered forward, past the onlookers, past the red haired woman, past the barricades. She ignored the protests of the police and orders of the UNIT troops telling her to stop. She continued to walk forward until she stood next to the gurney._

_"Please, no," she whispered. "No, it can't be."_

_Hands shaking, she reached out and slowly pulled back the blanket covering the body. It was him, his still beautiful brown eyes fixed and unseeing._

_"No," she sobbed. With the fingers of one hand, she traced the curve of his handsome face, the line of his jaw, his sideburns. She could feel his hair was still wet from the waters of the Thames. She let her head fall to his chest and felt the damp roughness of his pinstriped suit. "No, please God, no."_

"Rose, Rose, wake up. Please, please wake up, sweetheart."

The voice calling, pleading, sounded desperate. Panting, she forced herself to regain consciousness as she realized someone was vigorously shaking one of her shoulders. Opening her eyes, she saw the Doctor leaning over her, worry written all over his face.

He must have been really worried about her. He never called her sweetheart.

The last tendrils of the dream she had been having came back to her in a rush and she stared at him wide-eyed, heart pounding. Sitting up abruptly and grabbing him for a hug, she almost knocked them both over. She took deep, slow breaths, trying to slow her heart rate. "You were dead."

"Rose, I'm fine. I'm right here," he said, rocking her and stroking her hair. "I'm right here. I'm alright."

"But you weren't," she said, shaking her head. "You were dead."

"Shh, shh, shh," he whispered. "It was just a dream."

"No, it wasn't," she insisted, her breathing ragged. She pulled away from him and stared him in the face. "You were dead. Donna didn't save you, she turned right instead of left, and you _died_. You drowned, under the Thames. Didn't she tell you? That parallel world that was created around her? She wasn't there and you died."

A look of shock came over his face.

"I had died under the Thames?" he asked.

Rose nodded. "UNIT said you were fighting, I dunno, a giant spider or something?"

He nodded. "That must have been the Racnoss. Donna was there." He paused, pursing his lips. "It was a difficult time for me. It was right after…" He stopped and kissed her on her temple. "It was right after saying goodbye to you at Bad Wolf Bay. I met Donna right after that. Had I not met Donna…" His voice trailed off as it struck him just how close he had come to dying without regenerating.

He pulled her back into a hug. She rested her head on his chest and listened to the comforting beat of his heart through the thin t-shirt he had worn to bed.

"It happened," she said softly. "I got there too late. But in my dream, I was there before they took you away. I saw… you."

"I'm sorry, Rose," he whispered. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"'S okay," she murmured into his chest. "You're here and you're alright. That's all that matters."

~oOo~

_One month ago …_

_"What the hell is he doing?" Mickey demanded. "Crashing through a mirror with a horse?"_

_Mickey's voice echoed through the empty corridors of the abandoned spaceship, seeming even emptier to her because the Doctor wasn't there. At least the robots weren't trying to kill them anymore, she thought. Thank heaven for small favors._

_"He's trying to rescue her," she replied quietly._

_"But with a horse?"_

_She shook her head, unable to answer._

_Mickey paced back and forth through the small room of the spaceship. "First, he goes and gets drunk at a party while robots try to kill us. Now he's gone back to her with no way back. It's been, what, four hours? We know time passes faster over there than here. He could have been there four months. Hell, he coulda been there four years so far as we know._

_"Rose, when are you gonna wake up to the fact that alien or not, he's just another bloke. He's gonna leave you just like he left Sarah Jane. Only worse, cos when he abandons you, it's on a deserted spaceship in the middle of nowhere where there's no way to get home."_

_"He's comin' back, Mick. He'd never leave me here. He'd never leave us here. I know it. He'll be back."_

_"Rose, just wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!"_

"He's comin' back, Mick," she whispered. "I know it."

"Rose, wake up," the Doctor said. "Wake up."

Rose opened her eyes and yawned. "What?" she asked sleepily. "What's wrong?"

"You tell me," he said as he held her. "You were having a nightmare again. That's every night this week. What was this one about?"

She yawned again and moved closer to him. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into his side.

"'S not important," she said, shaking her head.

"Rose, I think it is important. Dreams are symbolic windows into the psyche, and your psyche is obviously troubled by something. We've got to get to the bottom of these nightmares of yours. You've been having them for months. So what was it about?"

She turned her face towards him and mumbled something he didn't understand into his chest.

"Rose?" he asked, tilting her head up so she would be forced to look at him. "What was it about?"

"Five and a half hours," she said quietly.

"I don't understand." She had said it as if he would instantly know what she meant. He scanned his memory to try to place the reference. And then the penny dropped.

"Rose, I am not leaving you," he said, pleading with her to believe him.

"You have in the past," she reminded him. "Not just that time, but you sent me home when we were on the Game Station, and you sent me here when the Daleks were attacking Canary Wharf. Not to mention he left me, us, here."

"But I stayed," he protested.

"Same. Man," she said. He opened his mouth to protest again but abruptly shut it when he heard what she said next. "You can't tell me that if your positions were reversed, if you had ended up the full Time Lord and him the part human one, that you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing." He didn't answer. "You told me yourself. You are the same man, Doctor."

"Rose, listen to me. I am _never_ leaving you. You were so right. The universe kept on trying to split us up, but you have proven time and again that it never, ever will." He pulled her closer and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"Doctor, never say never ever," she said to him brokenly. She leaned heavily into him. "You're the one who said that to me, right before Canary Wharf, right before we were separated."

"And what did you do? You found me again," he reminded her. "Despite all odds, despite it being _impossible_ , you found me again."

She shook her head as she pulled away from him just enough to meet his eyes. "Oh, Doctor, something's coming. I can feel it, in my skin, in my bones. Something's coming, and I'm scared we can't stop it."

And it scared him that he was beginning to sense it, too.


	2. Chapter One -- Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with the aftermath of the events in Dreaming in Color and Wide Awake, however enough is explained in the chapter that I don't believe you have to read those in order to understand this.

**Chapter One—Aftermath**

_Previously in Wide Awake:_

_"Goodbye, Doctor," I whispered before I could stop myself._

_"What… what did you say?" he asked._

_I could have kicked myself._

_"Said g'night," I lied. "What 'cha think I said?"_

_"Just that," he whispered. "Goodnight, Rose."_

_I relaxed in his embrace, lying there just feeling him hold me and listening to him breathe. I was tired, but there was no way I could sleep, no way I would let myself miss one more second of his time here._

_Eventually I felt him gently kiss my hair and heard him whisper, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. It did need saying. I should have said it long ago. And if it's my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I love you."_

_And then he was gone._

_I felt it the instant he left, the instant my Doctor returned, in the way he held me, squeezing me gently._

_The tears that had repeatedly threatened began to fall and this time I let them._

_We didn't talk about it, the fact that he had let the other Doctor use his body, the fact that they had tried to keep it from me, the fact that I knew, had known all along. What was there to say? Instead, my Doctor turned me towards him and held me as I sobbed._

~oOo~

_Five hours later…_

In an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Cardiff, the Doctor tossed and turned in his sleep, dream images flashing through his mind.

_Dressed in a bright orange-red space suit, the TARDIS behind him, he looked over the edge of a crater at the white domes of a sprawling space base._

_Suddenly he was standing in a shining white lab of some type. A middle-aged woman with blonde hair stood in front of him. "State your name, rank, and intention."_

_"The Doctor. Doctor. Fun," he answered._

For some reason, the images made him anxious. Even in his dream state, he could tell there was something wrong. His breathing quickened as the dream images sped up.

_A robot. "Gadget gadget."_

_The face of a young woman. Distorted. Damaged._

_The words "Bowie Base One" echoing around him._

Beside him Rose was so deeply asleep that she didn't notice the slight tremors of the bed or the sound of the Doctor beginning to mutter in a combination of Gallifreyan and English.

Still immersed in his dream, he murmured, "I've got to go."

_Water. Dripping._

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

_Water pouring._

_"Bowie Base One."_

As the dream turned into a nightmare, he became more and more agitated.

_The blonde woman. Adelaide._

_"Your death is a fixed point."_

_"Help me."_

"I can't," he quietly moaned.

_An explosion._

The small movements he had been making suddenly turned to thrashing as the nightmarish sounds and images raced at breakneck speed.

_The red earth of Mars._

_The deep orange of the spacesuit._

_The white of the space base._

_"Bowie Base One."_

_"I've got to go."_

_Water pouring from a face so altered it scarcely looked human._

_"Bowie Base One."_

_Fire surrounding him. Searing heat almost burning his face._

"The laws of Time are mine. They will obey me."

_The sound of an explosion. The blue of the TARDIS against the falling snow._

"Last of the Time Lords. The winner. Time Lord Victorious."

_The sound of a gunshot. An Ood standing under a streetlamp._

_And then the tolling of the Cloister Bell._

"No!" he shouted and sat up, lungs gasping for air, heart pounding, eyes wide with fright. "Ahhh!" Pain shot up from the fingertips of his fully Time Lord hand through his arm and shoulder to lodge itself in his chest. His face screwed up in pain, he took deep breaths through clenched teeth with his left hand clutching the opposite shoulder as he willed his heart to slow and the pain to go away.

With the sound of his voice and the shaking of the bed, Rose was instantly awake.

"What? What is it?" she cried as she sat up. She reached over to grab his hand. It felt as if it were on fire.

The horrifying images in his mind slowly receded, but the deep bonging of the Cloister bell still rang in his ears. He turned towards her, his eyes haunted.

"Oh, Rose," he said, "he's done something bad."

~oOo~

The next morning, Rose glanced at the Doctor across the kitchen table. His expression was unreadable. In the hour since they've been up, he hadn't said a single word; she'd held the entire conversation by herself. Other than to tell her about his nightmare about Mars, he hadn't really spoken to her since yesterday morning. When for some reason he had allowed the other Doctor to take over his body for the day.

The question in her mind was how much he _really_ knew about what had happened yesterday. And last night.

At the time she believed he knew, was even there, and if he hadn't exactly approved, he at least accepted it. Particularly because neither Doctor had told her the Time Lord was using his body.

Surely he had to know what would happen.

But she had figured it out, and _it_ had happened anyway.

She hadn’t thought about it as cheating on him—after all, they were the same man in her mind—but maybe he did.

Biting her lower lip nervously, Rose set her still half-full mug of coffee down on the table.

"I've got to head out," she said. She jerked her head at the door. It was just a tiny movement, barely a movement at all, but it emphasized that she was going, and going soon.

The Doctor nodded and set down his own mug. His was full; she didn't remember him even taking a sip of the strong, black brew he usually loved. And the fry up she had made had gone untouched on his plate.

To be fair, she hadn't had much of an appetite either.

She stood up from the kitchen table, and he stood as well.

"I'll be back tonight," she told him. "And don't worry about dinner. I'll bring home takeaway."

He nodded again, not quite meeting her eyes.

An awkward silence fell between them. Again.

"Do you want anything special?" she asked eventually, and he shook his head.

"Well, okay then," she said. "If you change your mind, just let me know. And if you need me, ring my mobile. I expect to be in my office all day, but you never know with this job." She hesitated for a moment, then stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth before heading out of the room.

She grabbed her blue leather jacket off the coat rack and her keys out of the wide, ceramic bowl set on a table in the entry on her way out the door. Once in her car, she put her key in the ignition but didn't start the engine. How could everything with him have gone to shite so quickly?

But she knew how. And she knew why.

And it was her fault.

The only question was whether she could salvage it or not.

~oOo~

The Doctor heard the front door close quietly as Rose left the house, and he picked up his coffee and headed back upstairs to shower and dress. Torchwood didn't really need him, not at the moment at any rate, and he was spending the week working on the TARDIS.

It was just as well. He wasn't sure Rose wanted him around anymore. Her going to work without him at least gave her a bit of a break away from him.

To think she traveled across universes to get back to him, only for this…

He set his mug of coffee, still untasted and now probably cold, down on the chest of drawers in the bedroom.

He had screwed up. He had allowed _him_ to borrow his body, which was bad enough, but he hadn't told her it was happening. He had lied to her. And she was putting on a valiant front, trying to pretend that nothing had happened, nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

In his mind he returned to last night, when he had regained control of his body only to find her crying. When he had allowed his other self to use his body for the day, it was with the understanding the other Doctor wouldn't hurt her. But he obviously had.

And since he had agreed to all of this, it was his fault as well.

He had ruined everything.

The only real question in his mind was whether he could salvage their relationship, or whether she'd kick him out: out of the house, and out of her life.

All of a sudden it occurred to him that he hadn't heard her car pull away. He quickly crossed to the window and looked down. Rose's bright red Mini Cooper was still in the drive. She was still here.

He should go down and talk to her. Apologize. Beg her to forgive him. Promise anything.

But then the car started, and she pulled away.

Symbolic of their relationship?

The thought terrified him.

The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had had people leave him before.

But no one like Rose.

Because there had never been anyone like Rose for him before.

He shoved thoughts of her leaving him out of his mind.

He picked up his mug and finally took a sip. As he had suspected it would be, it was cold. He grabbed his sonic screwdriver from his pocket—setting 172—and sonicked it to reheat it. He took a sip—and spat it back out into the cup when he burned his mouth.

Should have been setting 171, he told himself.

After a quick shower and a shave, he got dressed in his blue pinstriped suit, his go-to suit when he was feeling off, and headed down the stairs and outside, grabbing an anorak off a hook by the back door on the way. He was grateful for the coat, he really was; this part human body of his wasn't able to regulate body temperature nearly as efficiently as his Time Lord one did, and he felt the cold much more keenly than he used to. Gift from Donna, he supposed, as he remembered how cold she had been on the Ood homeworld.

But as warm as the anorak was, and it was warm, he missed his long brown coat. Not only had it been warm, it had had style and it had done that flappy thing when he was running. Inwardly he sighed. The Time Lord Doctor still had it, and the TARDIS.

On the other hand he had gotten Rose, and that was by far the better part of the deal.

Assuming he still had Rose.

No, can't think about that right now.

Badly in need of a distraction, he strode down the path through the woods that led to his TARDIS. He didn't _really_ need to work on her today, but tinkering with the old TARDIS had been his method for distracting himself for centuries, and, boy, did he need a distraction today.

He arrived at the clearing and stopped for a moment just to look at her. He smiled proudly. She had grown so much from the small chunk of coral that his other self had given him. As soon as the little TARDIS coral had grown to be the size of a pillar, a bit more than 2 meters in height, they had placed her there. Already far bigger on the inside, on the outside she currently looked like an English oak tree, approximately the same height as the other trees nearby. Her leaves were even beginning to change color. Once he managed to build a chameleon circuit for her, though, she wouldn't have to look like a tree. She'd be able to look like anything, anything at all.

Just as he was about to move forward, the scene in front of him wavered, and instead of standing in front of a tall oak in the woods, he was walking towards a blue box on an alien landscape. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the vision was gone and he was back in the woods.

Well, isn't that wizard, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation.

He had been increasingly plagued with intense dreams over the past few months, dreams he had begun to realize were not dreams at all but actually telepathic contact with the full Time Lord him. Recently, however, it had begun to happen occasionally even while he was awake. And then there had been yesterday…

No, he couldn't think about the worst mistake he had made during this incarnation. That's why he was out here, after all, as a distraction so he wouldn't have to think of the one thing he had done that could have ruined any chance of happiness with Rose.

The one thing, the only thing he wanted in this life, and he had already screwed it up.

~oOo~

Late that afternoon, Rose sat at her desk in her office in the Hub, staring vacantly at the chaos in front of her, music drifting up from Autopsy where Owen Harper was organizing his new equipment that had recently drifted up from the Rift. He had taken to listening to some new group she had never heard of—he had called them LLM—and he continually blared their new album whenever he was working downstairs. Normally she was pleased that when her door closed she could hardly hear it, but now she considered opening the door. She was still trying not to think about her problems with the Doctor, and she could use any distraction she could get. She had spent the day not talking with anyone, mostly hiding in her office, using the excuse that she was trying to tackle the business aspects of her job. Owen had said she was brooding, but she didn't want to put a label on what she was feeling, and certainly not that one.

Or the one that hit even closer to home: guilt.

No, she could think about that later she told herself for about the hundredth time. Over the years, she had become an expert at compartmentalizing her feelings. She had had to. Her devastation over losing the Doctor had been so overwhelming that if she hadn't been able to put it aside occasionally, she would have never been able to accomplish anything. At first the time could be only measured in seconds before she had a rush of despair. Over time seconds became minutes and eventually hours could go by before her emotions overtook her. But every night she allowed herself a few minutes to remember him, to remember the love and happiness they had had together and the grief and loneliness she felt by being apart from him.

And now those skills were being put to the test again. And were failing.

She had things to do, she had told herself that morning. And top on the list of what she had to do was de-junk her office.

Even though she had tried to work on reducing the clutter in her office today, there were still mounds of stuff—even after months she still wasn't entirely sure of what—shoved up against the walls of the room and her desk was still covered with piles of paperwork. When she had taken the job as the head of Torchwood Three, she had expected there would be problems. Problems with weevils terrorizing Cardiff during the dark of the moon. Problems with hostile aliens attempting to take over the planet. Problems with alien tech that had come up through the rift and had managed to find its way into the hands of the general public. Problems with Owen being an arse. In short, all the problems she had always encountered while working at Torchwood.

But she hadn't expected that the hardest, most frustrating problems she would encounter would have to do with paperwork.

Rose brushed a lock of her blonde hair out of her eyes and studied the mess on her desk. The stacks to her right were bills that had yet to be paid, the stack to her left were bills that had been paid. In front of her there were incident reports from the police, expense reports from the staff, memos from headquarters, intelligence reports from UNIT… and somehow, despite this world being capable of developing a trans-dimensional transport hopper and a dimension cannon, paperwork was still largely done on paper.

After realizing she had been staring at the same piece of paper for at least a minute, she leaned back in her chair and noticed the calendar on the wall. It was ridiculous to have a paper one anymore; after all, calendars were on every computer, every phone, every piece of electronics invented. But this one featured photos of tourist sites in and around Cardiff. Gwen had loved the photos—they truly were gorgeous—plus the calendar had come out of the Tourist Office that served as the entrance to the Hub, so it had been free. So she had stuck it on the wall and there it had stayed.

The calendar was currently sporting a shot of the Bay at sunset: the sky orange, the water gold, and the clouds a vivid scarlet. In the distance you could make out the silhouette of a transoceanic zeppelin.

And it said May.

She hadn't even been working here in May.

With a long-suffering sigh, she got up and crossed the room to the calendar, dodging random pieces of alien equipment on her way. To reach it she had to lean over one of the piles, old magazines that might have been here from when Mickey was in charge. Or possibly even Jake.

She flipped the calendar to the correct month—passing photos of a pastoral landscape and a Roman ruin that was located nearby—to find November.

Oh, was it really November already?

She sighed. Not only was it November, but November was almost over. It had been almost five months since the Crucible. Five months since the meta-crisis that created this version of the Doctor. Five months since being left on Bad Wolf Bay.

Five months since having the Doctor back in her life.

The time had flown by. In less than five months, far less actually, she had fallen in love with him again, began a real relationship with him, moved in with him, and bought a house with him.

Yet they had so perfectly slipped into all of that, in some ways it felt like their separation had never happened, like they had always been together and always would be. And she had had no doubt they would be.

But now…

She couldn't have fucked up worse if she had tried.

Fucked up. How… appropriate. She'd laugh if it didn't make her so sick to her stomach.

She hung the calendar back on the wall, now proclaiming the correct date, and turned back to the disaster that was her office. She would have loved for Ianto to do it. He'd have the mess cleaned up in hours, not days. The only reason he hadn't done it so far was he hadn't been asked nicely, and she hadn't wanted to ask him to do something that was really her responsibility. She began to walk back to her desk, to that portion of the mess that was actually hers, and accidentally kicked over a pile of who knows what in the process. It spilled all over the floor, revealing that buried underneath books on baby names and infant care were some magazines featuring scantily clad women on the covers.

That pile had definitely been Mickey's.

She began to pick some of them up to throw into the bin when a knock on the door interrupted her. She turned to see Toshiko in the doorway.

"Are you sure you and the Doctor don't want to come with?" Toshiko asked cajolingly. "Gwen's bringing Anwen."

Rose was sorely tempted. Gwen, Rhys, Tosh, Owen, and Ianto were going out to dinner that evening, and she knew Ianto was even bringing his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Lisa. Rose and the Doctor had been invited as well, and for a moment she seriously considered going. Maybe being around other people would allow them to get back to a little normalcy. But no. She knew what they really needed was some time alone to try and work out their problems, not just gloss over them.

"I'd love to," Rose replied. "But we can't. Not tonight." She glanced at her watch. "Oops, I'm late. Gotta go. Guess the bills are gonna have to wait after all."

"Well, if you two change your minds, we'll be at that new pizza place by the train station," Toshiko told her. "Can't remember what it's called." She pulled out her mobile.

"Don't bother," Rose said before the other woman could look it up. "If we decide to come and I can't find it, I'll ring you."

Rose headed out and Toshiko slowly followed her down the stairs, still searching for the name on her phone.

"There it is. Found it, Rose." she said, not noticing Rose had already left. "It's called Lupo Cattivo Pizzeria." She looked up. "Rose?"

~oOo~

Despite her best intentions to talk to him, dinner was just as strained as breakfast had been. She had brought home a curry, and they sat at the table picking at their food, making small talk, and avoiding looking at each other.

Well, at least as he was talking. Sort of.

Afterwards they watched telly—Rose would have been hard pressed to say what—and then went to bed.

Where he hesitantly gave her a kiss on the cheek. For a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, but then just said goodnight and rolled over, facing away from her.

It was the first time since they had moved in together that they hadn't had sex before bed. Even when intercourse wasn't an option, they always found other things they could do.

For a few minutes, she lay on her side, facing him, wondering if she dared to spoon him. She longed to touch him, but for the first time since the beach—the first time possibly ever, in fact—she wasn't even sure if he'd be open to a hug.

Oh, what had she done?

Her heart breaking, she rolled over, facing away from him, and tried to sleep.

~oOo~

The Doctor lay there silently, waiting for more than an hour before he heard Rose's even breathing indicating she had finally fallen asleep. He had longed to roll over and pull her into his arms; only his guilty conscience was preventing him from doing so. That, and the fact that he didn't know if he really should. Undoubtedly she was upset with him, undoubtedly they needed to talk about what he had done, what he hadn't done, what he should have done… But the thought of talking, really talking, rather than just his gob rambling, made him more than a bit queasy. It was why his previous regeneration—well, two regenerations back now he supposed, if he wanted to consider the meta-crisis in the count—despised domestics.

And was there anything more domestic than this?

The thought of domestics still occasionally made him want to run. Not from Rose, of course, but from the rest.

Particularly since the rest included the fact that domestics required him to face his part in what he and the other Doctor had done, and the guilt he had over it.

Blimey, he was rubbish at domestics, and he didn't do guilt well either.

But if he was going to face Rose, if she was ever going to forgive him they'd have to talk.

Tomorrow, he told himself firmly. Tomorrow they could talk.

Maybe.

Well, it was now obvious he wasn't going to sleep tonight. Seeking another distraction from his thoughts, he quietly got out of bed, got dressed, and headed out of the house.


	3. Chapter Two--Talking and Running

**Chapter Two—Talking and Running**

_Rose was standing on a deserted beach, fifty miles from Bergen, Norway. She had intended never to make the trek here again, had sworn she’d never set foot on the sand of Darlig Ulv Stranden again in her lifetime._

_But here she was, again standing on the same bloody beach in Norway, in almost exactly the same place as the last time she was here. And as it had before, the wind coming off the bay was catching her hair and blowing it into her face. Since she was shivering, she tightened her leather jacket even though she knew the slight shake of her body wasn’t from the cold._

_A sudden gust whipped her hair around strongly enough that it stung, and she reached up with one hand and tried to push it back behind her ear._

_“Am I ever gonna see you again?” she asked. She bit her lower lip nervously as she listened for his answer, her teeth digging hard enough into the flesh that if it were anywhere else on her body she would have left a mark._

_The Doctor shook his head. “You can’t,” he said, his voice breaking. His face was an open book, revealing the pain he felt._

_Tears streamed freely down her face, and she didn’t bother trying to brush them away._

_“I… I love you," she told him._

_“Rose Tyler,” he said, drawing out her name. He swallowed thickly, and she could see his eyes were suspiciously moist. “Does it need saying?”_

_Rose’s heart broke. She wanted to shout yes, it did need saying, it always needs saying, but the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. She reached out to him, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t manage to touch him. She pushed her hand farther and farther in front of her, but somehow without moving he stayed just out of reach._

_Eventually, he turned and walked away towards the TARDIS, his hands plunged deep into his trouser pockets, his blue suit jacket flapping a bit in the breeze._

_“But you promised,” she pleaded. “You said you’d spend the rest of your life with me!”_

_He stopped in his tracks and slowly turned back to her. “But that was before I knew what you did,” he said quietly. He turned away again and entered the TARDIS._

_“Doctor, please don’t leave me here!” she begged as she heard the TARDIS start to dematerialize. She wanted to run after him, wanted to run to the TARDIS, but she couldn’t get her feet to move. As it finally disappeared, the sound of its wheezing and groaning echoed off the hills surrounding the bay before fading to silence._

_He was gone._

_And she was left all alone on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay._

Rose forced herself out of the nightmare, opening her eyes to the still dark room. She instinctively reached across the bed to touch him, to reassure herself that the dream had been just that, a bad dream with no basis in reality. But instead of feeling a warm, sleeping body, she found emptiness. She turned and blearily glanced at the clock on the small table on her side of the bed. Its glowing display read half-three.

And then quickly turned back to look at the other side of the bed. He was gone. She was alone. His side of the bed was cold even. Her heart seized in fright.

Oh, God, he’s left me, she thought.

No, she told herself firmly in an attempt to force herself to calm down. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t just leave while I was sleeping.

Would he?

Unable to completely shake off her nightmare, she jumped out of bed and quickly began to search for the Doctor, trying to convince herself that her fears were unfounded. But he wasn’t in the en suite, he wasn’t in the kitchen making tea and having a pre-breakfast snack of bread and jam, he wasn’t in the living room working on some exotic piece of equipment from Torchwood... 

It didn’t mean anything, she told herself. He needed less sleep than she did. He often got up before she did. He was probably just in his workshop or something. 

She got dressed before returning to the kitchen for a torch. Then she turned on the outside light and headed outside.

The night was dark, the sky filled with thick clouds, blocking any light that could have been provided by the moon. Despite the porch light being on, the long, low barn that housed the Doctor’s workshop was barely visible, just one long shadow in a sea of shadows. 

The windows of the building were dark. Didn’t mean anything, she told herself again. It wouldn’t be the first time he had worked on a project in the dark. The holographic model of the universe he had created could only be seen with all the lights off, and if he wasn’t using that, he could be working on any number of other projects that required low amounts of light. 

With a flip of her thumb, she turned on the torch and crossed to the workshop. But when she entered the building the only source of light besides her own torch was the glow of the power button on the computer tower. She flipped the switch near the door and the room flooded with light. 

He wasn’t there either.

Flipping off the switch, she went back outside and pointed the torch down the drive. Both cars were still here, both her tiny Mini Cooper and the old Ford Monteo she had bought from the son of her mother’s housekeeper, Mrs. McDonald. If the cars are still here, she thought, that means he’s still here. Which means he must be working on the TARDIS.

Rose turned the torch down the footpath that led to the stand of trees where the TARDIS was planted, shining its light on the entrance to the woods, and started down the path, but before she had even taken two steps she heard the TARDIS. The sounds of it wheezing and groaning, the same noise that the other TARDIS had made when it was about to dematerialize, echoed through the trees, sounding overly loud in the silence of the night. Immediately she flashbacked to her dream. 

_The TARDIS disappearing. Standing alone on the beach._

The Doctor _was_ leaving her. He was taking the TARDIS and leaving her behind.

Heart pounding, she raced down the narrow footpath into the woods, the torch swinging wildly back and forth as she ran, shining everywhere except down the path. But she knew the way so well she didn’t need it. 

Round the tree that stood in the center of the path. Zig zag to avoid a rock sticking out of the ground. Jump over the thick tree root that crossed the path. She could have run it with her eyes closed.

When she reached the clearing, she saw that despite the noise of dematerialization it was making, the TARDIS was still there. She ran across the clearing and pushed against the heart carved into the trunk, fumbling for the door handle that she knew was there despite not being able to see it. As she felt it unlatch she yanked on the door and burst into the console room where she was greeted by a familiar sight. 

The mushroom shaped console of the TARDIS looked just as it had looked the last time she had been there. It was only partially finished; loose wires hung from the bottom and parts yet to be installed were scattered, along with a variety of tools, on the grating surrounding it. The Doctor was lying on his back half inside the base, his blue pinstriped trousers and red trainers the only parts of him visible. 

At the sound of the door opening, the Doctor hauled himself out from where he had been working and looked up at her. When he saw the expression of fear on her face he flew across the room and caught her in a tight hug. He could feel her tremble in his arms.

“Rose,” he said into her hair. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

She dropped the torch and clutched at him, his jacket bunching in her hands as she held him in a death grip. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. “You weren’t in bed,” she said into his shoulder. The accusation held just a tinge of hysteria. “I looked everywhere. You weren’t in the house, you weren’t in the workshop…”

“I’m here. I’m right here,” he said. 

After a few moments her heart rate slowed and she stopped shaking. “‘M sorry,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder. “I just had another nightmare and I couldn’t find you and then when I heard the TARDIS I thought…” Her voice trailed off.

When she didn’t continue, he prompted her. “What did you think?”

She shook her head and sniffed loudly. “‘S stupid.” 

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not stupid,” he told her. “What was it?”

She hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to answer. 

“In my dream,” she said, “you left me, and then when I heard the TARDIS I thought it was coming true.”

His arms tightened around her. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry I scared you. But we talked about this. I told you I’m never gonna leave you and I won’t. I swear it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Eventually, one arm still around her, he led her out of the TARDIS and down the path back to the house. Once they were inside and seated on the sofa in the living room, he pulled her tightly back into his embrace and whispered promises to her, rocking her gently in his arms. Slowly he could feel the tension leave her body, and he loosened his grip on her. He moved his hand to push a lock of her hair out of her face.

She wiped her face with her hands. “So what were you doing?” she asked. She tried to sound casual, but he knew her question was more than just idle curiosity.

“I was just testing the engines, Rose,” he told her gently. “I wasn’t going anywhere. Wasn’t even going to fully dematerialize.”

“I thought you were leaving me,” she said softly. “I thought after…” Her voice broke off, and his brow furrowed.

“After what?” the Doctor asked quietly.

Rose bit her lower lip and looked away, unable to face him. “You know,” she said.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I really, really don’t. Because there is nothing, nothing you could say, nothing that you could do, that could make me leave you.”

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “But… two days ago,” she began, “when—”

Placing his fingertips under her chin, he tilted her face up and met her eyes. “There is _nothing_ that happened, nothing that could have happened two days ago that would ever make me leave you,” he said, interrupting her.

“But…”

“No buts. Rose, I am _never_ going to leave you. Full stop,” he said slowly, enunciating every word carefully so there would be no mistake. He paused for a moment, considering his next words. “But I wouldn’t blame you if you left me.”

Now it was her turn to look confused. “Why would I leave you?”

He swallowed, hard. “Two days ago I lied to you. I, we, tried to trick you. With the best of intentions of course, but still that’s what we did. And not only do you know it now, but I’m guessing you knew it all along.”

She sighed, a harsh exhalation of breath. “I did know. And I was angry at first,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t leave you over that. I worked for years, traveled across universes to get back to you.”

“You also traveled universes to get back to him,” the Doctor said quietly. “And you cried when he left.” 

Rose wasn’t sure if he meant two days ago, or on the beach in Norway, the first or the second time. Perhaps he meant all three.

“You were… you _are_ the same man,” she reminded him. “And you’re still with me.”

He met her eyes. “Yes, I am. And here’s where I’m going to stay.”

They fell silent for a moment, eyes locked. Rose was the first to look away. She sighed in mock exasperation. “Look at the pair of us,” she said, shaking her head, “both sure that the other is going to leave.”

He snorted as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and they fell backwards to rest against the back of the sofa. She snuggled into his side. 

“Well, tell you what,” he said. “If you don’t leave, I won’t leave.”

“Well, _I’m_ not gonna leave,” she replied, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Well then, _I’m_ not gonna leave either,” he told her. “So I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“But stuck with you, ‘s not so bad,” she said, grinning for the first time in more than a day.

And then she gasped as for the first time something occurred to her. She sat up abruptly and turned to him wide-eyed. “Is it my fault? What he did on Mars?”

He stared at her in disbelief. “How could it be…” he asked. 

“Because I told him that I wouldn’t leave you, even if I could.”

He shook his head and cupped her face in his hands. “Bowie Base One was not your fault. It was his. And maybe mine. The meta-crisis didn’t just affect me, it affected him as well. This has been a rough regeneration. He lost you, he lost Donna, he even lost part of himself in the meta-crisis. He’s become unstable. And he’s traveling alone on top of it.”

He took a deep breath. “That could have been me,” he said in a low voice. “I was the dangerous one, not him. But I have you.” 

“And he’s all alone,” she said softly.

“There’s no one to stabilize him. No one to stop him when he’s going too far.” He paused for a moment. “And there’s more. I told you that Donna and I ended up on the Ood homeworld.” At the mention of Donna, his voice softened. “Donna was brilliant, by the way. Helped save the Ood from lifetimes of enslavement. At the end, they predicted the meta-crisis, the DoctorDonna, although we didn’t understand that at the time. But they also told us something else. They said our song was ending. The Doctor’s song,” he clarified.

“But I thought… I thought you managed to change that. You told me that you thought aborting the regeneration after the Dalek shot at you, that the meta-crisis had changed that.”

The Doctor nodded. “We thought so, but we were wrong, because he’s received similar prophecies from other sources since then. Everywhere he turns, someone is telling him his song is ending.

“Rose, when I dreamt about Mars, the last thing I heard was the Cloister Bell,” he continued. “As you know, it only rings in the gravest of emergencies, in this case, a half-mad Time Lord, drunk with power.” His voice trailed off when he saw how upset she was growing, but she deserved to know the rest. “Right after he tried to change time, he had a vision of an Ood, Ood Sigma, motioning to him. He thinks he’s going to die. And he’s afraid he’s going to die outright, without regenerating.”

She swallowed, trying to fight down her fear for the other Doctor. She tried to keep her voice steady. “What’s he gonna do? Do you know?”

“He’s doing what we’ve always done,” he told her. “He’s running.”

~oOo~

_“This way!” the Doctor yelled at the top of his lungs. He ran pell-mell down the corridors of a factory on a large moon that humans had colonized in the 53rd century. Rajesh Dalal, a young man who worked in the building, tried desperately to keep up, but his efforts were made more difficult by the smoke which was rapidly filling the air. Not to mention he was holding over his nose and mouth a dampened pocket square the other man had given him, which slowed him down much more than he thought it would._

_After several twists and turns of the corridor, Raj lost sight of the older man. He stopped, trying to catch his breath through the cloth, when he came to a junction of two hallways. Which way had the Doctor gone?_

_The hall to his left was dark, too dark to make anything out, not a door, not a window, not even a light switch to turn on the overhead lights. Lights which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, since whatever it was that had been chasing them had managed to cut the power to half of the building earlier._

_Eyes watering, Raj began to cough as the smoke began to make its way through the pocket square. He looked down the corridor to his right. There was some sort of sign near the ceiling, about ten meters in front of him, glowing red through the thickening haze, too thick to make out what it said. Perhaps it’s the exit, he thought hopefully._

_“Doctor,” he called weakly between coughs. “Doctor, where are you?”_

_All of a sudden he felt something grab the back of his jacket and yank. He stumbled backwards through a doorway he hadn’t seen earlier and almost landed on his bum, catching himself from falling only at the last second._

_The Doctor fell to a crouch by the doorway, and Raj mimicked him. Thankfully the air was much clearer closer to the floor. Raj dropped the cloth away from his mouth for a moment._

_“Shhhh,” the Doctor told him in a stage-whisper. “Finger on lips.” He demonstrated by placing his own index finger lightly on his own lips. “You need to keep quiet. They still may be out there.”_

_Raj was puzzled by the Doctor’s actions, particularly since it hadn’t been Raj who had been yelling loud enough to wake the dead, but he obeyed anyway, placing his finger on his lips._

_The Doctor grinned, his face in the shadows, only his teeth shining in the dim light surrounding them._

_“Good man,” he said. “Now the creatures that are chasing us are vulnerable to liquids, water in particular, but other liquids as well: juice, pop, milkshakes—reminds me a banana milkshake would be good when this is all over. Anyway,” he stretched out the word, “very vulnerable to liquids, but nothing flammable. I repeat, nothing flammable. That would make the situation much, much worse. You got that?”_

_Raj nodded. “We need to lure them into an area that has lots of liquids that aren’t flammable. Tell me, Doctor, why aren’t they setting the building on fire?”_

_The Doctor looked surprised at the question._

_“Oh, they are,” he said. Raj stared at him incredulously when he sounded unconcerned by it. “Building’s burning all around us. You know the old adage, where there’s smoke there’s fire. It’s just that they are controlling it for some reason right now. But if they get into anything flammable—petrol, motor oil, even cooking oil—boom.”_

_Raj’s eyes widened. “Boom?” he asked. He was a trifle anxious about that. Or at least that’s what he told himself. Really he was terrified._

_The Doctor nodded, grinning widely at him. He seemed excited by the prospect, and Raj noticed his eyes held a slight touch of madness behind them._

_“Yeah. Boom!” He mimicked an explosion with his hands. “Ready, Rajesh?”_

_Raj took a deep breath and nodded._

_He didn’t think it was possible, but the Doctor grinned wider. “Allons-y!”_

_This time Raj led the way, only stopping when they reached the men’s loo. He knew that that one, which was located near the offices, contained a small shower in the back._

_Once inside, Rajesh dropped the cloth from his face again. The air was visibly clearer here, and he took deep lungsful of air, hacking a bit to get the smoke out of his lungs._

_“This is perfect!” the Doctor said, pounding Raj on the back. Then he removed his brown greatcoat, tucked it behind a toilet, and closed the stall door. “Don’t want to risk that. I love that coat. Janis Joplin gave me that coat, you know.”_

_“No, I didn’t,” Raj answered. He had no idea who Janis Joplin was, but she must be pretty important for the Doctor to value the coat like that._

_“Hide in one of the stalls, Raj.”_

_As he obeyed, he heard the Doctor cross to the door and fling it open._

_“Oi! Over here!”_

_Raj heard the roar of the fire creatures as they entered the room, and he could feel the temperature in the room suddenly jump._

_“Come on, come on, come and get me,” the Doctor hollered._

_Raj slowly opened the stall door to see what was going on. The heat radiating off of the fire creatures made his skin burn, and he narrowed the crack between the door and the stall wall, just enough to lessen his exposure to the heat yet still allow him to peek out._

_The Doctor was walking backwards, towards the shower at the back of the room, with the fire creatures following him. “Come on, come on, just a little bit more…” he coaxed, making a “come here” gesture with his hands._

_Raj heard the water turn on full blast, followed by an unearthly shrieking. Steam began to fill the room._

_“HA!” the Doctor yelled triumphantly. “Take that!”_

_The water ran for what seemed like minutes until the screaming stopped. When it was finally turned off, the silence was deafening._

_“You can come out now, Raj,” the Doctor called._

_“Are they gone?” he asked. He walked out of the stall and towards the shower. The Doctor emerged from the steam looking slightly like a drowned rat, hair flattened and dripping down his face, his brown pinstriped suit drenched and clinging to his body._

_“Yep,” the Doctor answered, popping the p. He reached into his pocket and, amazingly, pulled out a large, fluffy towel which he used to dry his face and hair. “They’re completely extinguished. Now to turn on the emergency sprinklers in the rest of the building and we’re done.”_

_Rajesh and the Doctor finished putting out the fire with the help of the local fire brigade, which had just arrived, the Doctor holding a giant hose which shot out water so strongly that it looked like he risked getting knocked over. To Raj’s eyes, the Doctor was taking a lot of risks, working on the front line of the fire without any protective gear, not to mention earlier when he had led the fire creatures into the shower. When he mentioned it to him, the Doctor merely responded with something that sounded like, “Superior biology.”_

_Whatever that meant._

_Later, the Doctor, now wearing his Janis Joplin coat, led the way outside to his blue box which he had told Raj earlier was called the TARDIS._

_“So this is goodbye then,” Raj stated, slightly disappointed. As odd as the Doctor was, in the time they had spent together Raj had grown to care for him and now considered him a friend._

_“Yep.” The Doctor nodded. “But before I go, I just wanted to tell you, Raj, you were brilliant in there.”_

_“Thanks,” he said, feeling extraordinarily complimented. As the Doctor began to turn away, he stopped him. “Doctor, you never told me who you are. Not really.”_

_“I’m just a traveler,” he replied._

_Raj’s brow furrowed. “Don’t you ever stop?”_

_“No real need to,” he said lightly. “I’m a traveler. That’s who I am. Come and go, here and there.”_

_“All alone?” Raj asked._

_“Yep.” The Doctor over-pronounced the p again. He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes._

_“I could, you know, come with,” Raj suggested hesitantly. “So you wouldn’t be alone.”_

_The Doctor’s grin faded, and his face took on a shuttered expression. He shook his head. “No, I don’t do that anymore. Used to, but never again.”_

_He turned and entered the TARDIS, and with a wheezing and groaning it disappeared from sight._

_Raj stood there, staring at the empty space. “It’s not good for man to be alone,” he quoted softly before he turned and made his way home._


	4. Chapter Three--Celebration and Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kandy Man is a canon character that the Seventh Doctor and Ace faced. Thanks to Bittie752 for suggesting I use it.

**Chapter Three—Celebration and Denial**

A week later the Doctor sat at the workbench in his lab, glasses on, brow furrowed and tongue sticking out, as he peered through a large, free-standing magnifying glass. In front of him lay his sonic screwdriver, partially dismantled and scattered all over the surface of the counter. Since the TARDIS had grown so much over the past few months, she was large enough to spare a sliver of coral, and he had replaced part of the inner workings of his screwdriver with it, allowing for greater memory and control as well as providing a continuing link between it and the TARDIS herself. 

He was also taking advantage of the fact that the sonic was dismantled to exchange the rare blue diamond he had used as a focusing agent with a similar stone. Its focusing ability was less than the one he had been using, but the coral should more than make up for that; as part of the TARDIS itself, it had a rudimentary intelligence which would have the ability to focus the sonic waves on its own if necessary. Having a sonic that was linked to the TARDIS would also improve his own link with his Time and Space Ship, making up for the slight lessening of his telepathic abilities he had experienced as a result of the meta-crisis.

Not to mention that when he had originally built the sonic he had wanted to use the blue gem for something else.

Namely an engagement ring for Rose.

The talk they had had about his decision to allow the Time Lord him to use his body for the day, even though they had mostly talked around the subject, had been the starting point for them to clear the air on a lot of other subjects as well, primarily the nature of her nightmares. He’d known that she had dreamt of him leaving her, but he’d had no idea how often. It turned out that she’d been dreaming about it almost every night for months. He hoped marrying Rose would go a long way to alleviating her fears.

Part of him felt it wasn’t really necessary. Marriage on Gallifrey had been all about forming political alliances and uniting Houses; marrying for love had been almost unheard of. And marriage for Time Lords, who because of regeneration could live long enough to be virtually immortal, was even rarer. Who wanted to be linked to another person for potentially thousands of years? The answer ended up being almost no one. So marriage by custom was limited to one regeneration and usually occurred early in one’s first life, and even then it was still uncommon.

But not only was it not necessary in his mind, but when they had been on the beach in Norway, he had offered to spend his life with her. There was nothing that could make him more committed to her.

But he wanted to marry Rose for deeper reasons than just reassuring her of his commitment to stay with her; a large part of him _wanted_ the outward, public demonstration of his commitment to her. He was now living a human life, a singular, normal life he had never thought he’d be able to live, and he wanted to embrace all of it. Including marriage to the love of his life, and even children if she wanted them.

But the first step was to formally, and privately, ask her to marry him, not just vaguely hint at it with an audience.

And with a ring he had made himself using the blue diamond from his own sonic screwdriver with a platinum setting formed from some of the coins he had brought with him from the TARDIS. He could have just purchased a ring, he certainly had enough money to do so, but he liked the symbolism of giving her something that he had made himself, and that had a stone that had been part of his screwdriver, his most prized possession after the TARDIS. The ring would take a while to make, particularly because he didn’t dare work on it when she was home, but he hoped it would be ready by Christmas. 

As he put the finishing touches on his screwdriver, the latest news report blared on telly in the background. He had taken to listening to the news lately while he worked. Not only did it give him information on current events, it often provided the historical background for them, something that he found helpful since this world’s history was so different than the history of Earth in their home universe.

“And in his continuing bid to hold onto his presidency, President Frobisher has been promising the sun, the moon and the stars to everyone of power and influence in the government. The latest person to receive his attentions is Pete Tyler, founder and CEO of Vitex as well as the director of a mysterious government agency simply known as Torchwood. For years Tyler has been requesting the closure of one of their facilities, located in one of the buildings in Canary Wharf, and President Frobisher has just signed the order approving the closure. Shutdown of the facility is scheduled to begin next week, and is expected to be finished shortly before the election.”

The Doctor turned sharply and stared at the television. Pete had told him when he had first arrived that he had wanted to shut down Torchwood One at Canary Wharf. It looked like he’d now have the chance, the Doctor thought. And not a moment too soon as far as he was concerned.

“Despite his promises of reform to the general public,” the newsreader continued, “and backroom deals with the powers that be in Congress, Harriet Jones is expected to win handily in next month’s special election. In fact, an unnamed source high in government talking about the possibility of former President Jones’ eventual return to Downing Street was quoted as saying ‘the two shall be reunited’.”

The Doctor’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. It looked like Harriet Jones would get her three terms after all, just not in the universe where she’d originally had them. He had been instrumental in getting her removed from office there, but he wouldn’t stand in her way here. After causing Brian Greene to resign from office, he had promised Rose he wouldn’t overthrow any more governments. Or at least not this year.

The newsreader began another story, and the sound drifted into the background as he became aware of a scent just on the edge of his senses. Mouth slightly open, he inhaled slowly and deeply, trying to capture it. It was a sweet scent, no, more than that, a sugary aroma. Fudgy. Or maybe caramel-y. Weird.

Puzzled, he lifted his sonic screwdriver to his nose and sniffed it. No. It wasn’t coming from his sonic. Or at least he didn’t think so. Just to check, he touched it to his tongue.

“Bleh,” he said aloud, pulling a face. “Metal. And a bit dirty. Got to clean it when I’m finished.”

He inhaled again, again trying to find the source, but now he couldn’t smell it. It was gone, like it had never been there. Huh. He shrugged. Perhaps his partially human nose was playing tricks on him.

The sound of wheels pulling up the gravel drive made him give up on solving the minor mystery. He pocketed his sonic, switched off the news, and headed out of his lab.

Outside, Rose was unloading groceries from the boot of her car, which was filled to capacity, as was the back seat. To be fair, that wasn’t saying much; it wasn’t as if you could fit much in it, but she had been able to pick up the makings for a nice dinner, some necessities, and enough junk food to satisfy even the Doctor. Well, for a few days, at any rate. If she was lucky.

When she saw him, she grinned. He grinned back with a wide smile she knew she would never tire of.

“Here, let me help with those,” he said. 

Once they had carried everything into the kitchen, he pulled her into his arms for a kiss. She sank into it and lost herself for a moment in the softness of his lips slowly moving against hers. When he eventually pulled away, both of them breathless, he rested his forehead on hers. “I missed you today.”

“Missed you too,” she replied, smiling at him. After one more kiss, she pulled out of his arms and began to empty the bags. “Steaks, salad, potatoes…” 

As he helped to remove food from the bags, he again got a whiff of what he had smelled in the workshop, caramel, but this time along with the odor of burnt sugar. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. That was odd. On the other hand, maybe Rose had purchased some sort of burnt sugar cake for afters. But that still didn’t explain why he had smelled it in his workshop.

“What’s this?” he asked as he pulled a plain white box out of a large paper sack.

“Open it and see,” she told him as she pulled a bottle of champagne out of another bag.

As the Doctor opened the box, the faint odor of burnt sugar was replaced by the stronger scents of vanilla and banana. Inside were six very large fairy cakes with white frosting and dragées, or as he called them, edible ball bearings. “Wow, you really went all out!” Before she could stop him he picked one up and shoved half of it in his mouth. “Oh, this is fantastic! And it’s banana flavored, too,” he said with his mouth full of cake.

“Hey, that’s for pudding!” she protested. She playfully swatted him. “You’ll spoil your appetite!” 

Still chewing, he raised his eyebrows at her in disbelief. 

“Look who I’m talking to,” she said, laughing. “Is it even possible to spoil your appetite?”

“Nope,” he said, over-pronouncing the p. “You know, this is really, really good. You should taste.” He stuck his finger in the frosting and pulled up a glop. Then he raised it up and placed it in her open, waiting mouth.

Meeting his eyes, she closed her lips and sucked slowly, swirling her tongue around his finger before releasing it with a pop. Then she slowly licked her lips. “You’re right,” she said in a low voice. “It is good.”

He stared at her mouth, mesmerized for a moment by the way the tip of her tongue was touching her upper teeth as she grinned. Her grin widened and she chuckled when she realized how distracted he was. He cleared his throat in an effort to bring himself back to the present. “So, what’s the occasion?” he asked, shoving the rest of the cake in his mouth.

“Can’t you guess?” she said teasingly.

He looked thoughtful. “Hmm, it’s Thursday, correct?”

“Yep,” she said.

“So are we celebrating it being Thursday?”

She rolled her eyes. “Guess again.”

He was silent for a moment, then his eyes lit up. “I know! We’re celebrating that they’re shutting down Torchwood One. You know,” he said thoughtfully, “that really should have been my first guess.”

“They’re shutting down Torchwood One?” she asked in surprise.

“Yep, just announced it on the news a few minutes ago.”

“Huh,” she said. “Wonder why Dad didn’t tell me.”

“Maybe Pete hasn’t had a chance yet.”

She nodded. “If it’s breaking news, maybe he hasn’t.” She grinned at him again. “Actually that was a pretty good guess, but no. One more try.”

Forehead wrinkled and lips pursed in concentration, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and tilted his head to look at her. 

“Hmmm.”

“Give up?” she asked.

“Certainly not,” he told her indignantly.

As she began to broil the steaks and make baked potatoes (not as good as chips but certainly a lot easier to make), he went on to suggest a number of other possibilities, each more bizarre than the last, from obscure holidays exclusive to Pete’s World—perhaps one dedicated to the color puce—to the fact that they finally had met JK Rowling and hopefully had inspired her to write the Harry Potter novels. 

“That was a pretty good guess, too,” she said. “But set the table and save the rest for over dinner. You’re distracting me. I don’t want the steaks to overcook.”

She turned away from him, and he came up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. He felt her shiver as he began nuzzling the back of her neck, and she let out a quiet sigh of appreciation. 

“Forget the steaks,” he said in a low, seductive voice. “I’d like to distract you a lot more.” He gently nibbled on her earlobe, then he moved lower and began to place soft, slightly wet kisses from just behind her ear down the side of her neck to that sensitive point at the joining of her neck to her shoulder. Her head fell back, and her eyes closed.

And then abruptly opened. She turned and pushed him away.

“Later,” she said firmly. “Dinner first.” She gave him a wicked grin. “You’re going to need it to keep up your strength.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really?” 

“Yep.” She popped the p, mimicking him. “So go set the table, and take the salads out while you’re at it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He stole one more kiss before heading out of the kitchen. She grinned.

Five minutes later, the Doctor was putting the finishing touches to the table in the lounge. Normally pushed against one wall so it was out of the way, he had pulled it into the center of the room and draped it with a light blue tablecloth from Rose's first flat in Pete's World. He finished setting it with dark blue place mats and napkins, crystal candlestick holders, candles and a pair of champagne flutes that had been part of a housewarming gift from Pete and Jackie. 

He was lighting the candles with his sonic when she walked in carrying their plates laden with rare steaks and baked potatoes with all the trimmings.

“Wow,” she said, setting the food down. “This is gorgeous. I’m impressed.”

“Well, I’m very good,” he said with a smirk. 

“Yes, you are,” she agreed with a suggestive smile. She gave him a quick kiss, breaking away before it could become a much longer one. “Oops, forgot the champagne.” She moved to get it, and he stopped her. 

“No, let me.”

He ran into the kitchen and came out with the champagne bottle wrapped in a dishcloth. He opened it like an expert, the bottle making a low hiss rather than a loud pop, and poured some into each of their glasses. Then he sat down across from her and began a lecture on the history and development of champagne, something he took credit for.

“The process would have been discovered eventually,” he said finally. “And of course it was, since it’s here as well. I just… sped up the process in our home universe.” He lifted his glass to make a toast. “So what are we celebrating?” She didn’t answer; instead she simply clinked her glass to his. “Not going to tell me, are you?”

She took a sip of the champagne, and he raised one eyebrow. “Ahhh, a challenge. You know you’re gonna tell me eventually.”

“Of course,” she said, “Since you can’t seem to figure it out all by yourself.”

“Five quid says I figure it out before pudding.”

“Ten says you can’t.”

“Done,” he agreed, and they clinked glasses again.

He sat back and furrowed his brow, considering the problem before he raised his champagne flute to his lips. Rose noticed he had a small burn on the index finger of his right hand. “What happened to you?”

“What?” he asked.

“Your hand,” she said.

He looked down to examine it. “Oh, that. Evidently the TARDIS wants a few days to incorporate all the parts I’ve already installed in her, and she objected when I continued working.” True enough, but he had actually received the burn while attempting to dismantle the sonic screwdriver, but he didn’t want her to know he had done that, at least not until he gave her the engagement ring.

Rose chuckled. “Sounds like she’s getting feisty.”

“Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word, “our little girl’s growing up.”

They grinned at each other.

“Anyway, I’m going to have to do something else for a few days if I don’t want to lose a finger.”

“Well, I’d suggest you come with me to the Hub,” she said, “but it’s been really slow lately: no alien incursions, no Weevil attacks, nothing spit up from the Rift. All I’m probably going to be doing is trying to finish cleaning my office.”

The Doctor grimaced. He was slightly allergic to cleaning—okay, more than slightly allergic since he despised it—having had centuries of the TARDIS doing it for him.

“Nah, I’ve got other projects to work on around here,” he said, slightly evasively. “Just ring me if you need anything.”

They tucked in to their food, the Doctor moaning in appreciation. “Perfection, absolute perfection,” he told her, mouth half full of steak and potatoes.

“Just wait till afters,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “I can’t wait.”

~oOo~

_The Doctor ran flat out down the sterile white corridors of Kel-Aman 3, a space station studying the twin stars Kel and Aman. Ahead of him was a psychopath who had been systematically killing off the inhabitants of the space station._

_Trailing behind him was Mitsu Endo, chief science/medical officer and third in command. Well, now in command, actually, since the first and second in command had been brutally murdered._

_Having arrived just before the murders had begun, the Doctor had been the primary suspect until the body of Crewman Brent had been discovered. Brent had been suffocated by an unknown organic, and extremely sticky, substance, as all the others had been. The Doctor had been in custody at the time of his death, and so Mitsu had had him released when he insisted he could help identify the substance used in the killings and catch the person who had done it._

_The Doctor rounded a corner ahead of her, and Mitsu tried her best to catch up. It was a fool’s errand, she knew, since the Doctor not only had much longer legs but he was also wearing plimsolls. Plus Mitsu got the impression he had done a lot of this before, running after suspects that is. Perhaps that was the reason for the trainers, she thought._

_“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” she heard him exclaim._

_She rounded the corner herself only to see the strangest creature she had ever seen in her life. It almost looked like a brightly colored automaton, but it was made of some sort of material she didn’t recognize. It held a red and white striped hollow cane and was pointing it at the Doctor. The scent of sugar and peppermint filled the air._

_“What the hell is that thing?” she asked._

_“Mitsu, meet Kandy Man, made of sugar and spice, but far from being nice,” the Doctor said. “Composed entirely of boiled, baked and frozen sweets. We’ve met before, but I thought I destroyed him back then.”_

_“You may have destroyed one of us, but we are everywhere,” it boasted._

_“But why are you here killing off our people?” Mitsu asked._

_“We need a new processing plant,” Kandy Man told her. “This space station is perfect for that. Close enough to Kel to be provided unlimited amounts of energy as well as the necessary core element of hydrogen, and close enough to the planet KA 4 to harvest both carbon and oxygen.”_

_“So you’re looking to turn this station into a giant candy factory?” the Doctor asked in disbelief. While he was speaking, he surreptitiously reached into the pocket of his brown pinstriped suit jacket._

_“Yes, to form a new Kandy army to take over the quadrant. And there’s no way you can stop us!”_

_The Doctor rolled his eyes. “You do know a good-sized, hungry primary school could defeat you, and keep the dental industry in business to boot. And short of that…”_

_Mitsu saw him whip a narrow, cylindrical object out of his pocket and point it at the monster. With a flip of one finger, it whirred and its tip lit up with a blue light. Ahead of him, the candy monster caught fire and the corridor was filled with the smell of burning sugar. She wrinkled her nose at the stench._

_The monster roared and lunged at him as the automatic sprinkler system turned on, putting out the fire and drenching them in the process._

_“Oops, forgot about that!” the Doctor yelled. “Sweets are very flammable. Run!” But she was already moving, and this time he was following her._

_“Now what?” she yelled as she ran down the corridor, trying not to slip in the puddles of water that were forming on the floor._

_“You wouldn’t happen to have several gallons of stomach acids on you anywhere?”_

_She shot him a look over her shoulder._

_“No, of course not,” he said, answering his own question. “Where’s the nearest airlock?”_

_“Section B-6, three corridors down and one over.”_

_He nodded. “Time to split up. Get to somewhere safe. I’ll meet you in the medbay in five minutes, and if I’m not there in ten, well, it was very nice to meet you.”_

_“What are you going to…”_

_“Go!” he ordered in a voice that broached no argument, and she turned down the next corridor. Behind her she heard him yell._

_“Oi, sugar for brains, over here!”_

_A few seconds later, an emergency airlock slammed shut somewhere behind her, and a siren began to blare._

_The Doctor’s back there, she thought anxiously. She turned around and raced back. A silver metal door blocked the corridor in front of her, separating her section from section B-6._

_“Computer, open the airlock!” she ordered. When it didn’t comply, she said it again, this time more loudly and anxiously. “Computer! Open the airlock!” She jabbed at the controls next to the door, but the airlock stayed firmly closed._

_“Doctor! Doctor!” she hollered, hoping he could hear her. “Doctor, are you alright?”_

_Overhead, a computerized voice began to speak over the intercom._

_“Amber alert. Airlock in sector B-6 open. Emergency protocol delta. Amber alert. Airlock in sector B-6 open. Emergency protocol delta. Amber alert…”_

_“Doctor!” she yelled frantically, but she knew that with the vacuum of space there would be no way he could answer her._

_Within moments the alarm went silent and the message overhead changed._

_“Airlock in sector B-6 closed. Sector re-pressurizing.”_

_There was no way he could have survived that, she thought. With a heavy heart, she made her way to her quarters to put on a clean and dry jumpsuit._

_Seven minutes later, she was in the medbay lab, testing the substance the Kandy Man had used to kill so many of the crew. To Mitsu’s shock, the door to the medbay opened and the Doctor sauntered in; the only evidence of his ordeal was that his hair was messier than before. Even his clothes were dry._

_“Respiratory bypass,” he stated at the unspoken question on her face. “And I’ve got quite a lot of experience hanging on for dear life.” He crossed over to her and stuck a finger in the sticky brown substance in front of her. She pulled a face when he stuck the finger in his mouth._

_“Mmm,” he said, nodding. “Yep. Caramel.” He stuck his finger in it again, pulled up a glop of it and stuck it in his mouth._

_“Caramel?”_

_“A substance formed by the heating of a variety of sugars. Would have thought you would have been able to identify it quicker than this.” Suddenly his eyes opened wide in realization. “Oh, I forgot. 67th century, right? You lot are on a health kick! You don’t eat a lot of sweets. In fact, if I remember correctly, most of them have been outlawed, haven’t they? I imagine you’ve never even seen caramel before, let alone tasted it.”_

_He shoved his finger back into the caramel and then held it in front of her. Without thinking she opened her mouth and he placed his finger on her tongue. She barely noticed the taste, overwhelmed by the intimacy of the gesture._

_“Good?” he asked, and she nodded dumbly, not certain if she meant the flavor of the candy or the feel of his skin on her tongue._

_“Well, I’m sure you can take it from here,” he continued. He turned and walked out of the room and Mitsu followed._

_“Doctor, you never said who you are or how you got here,” she said as she caught up with him._

_“I’m a traveler,” he told her, “and as far as how I got here…”_

_He turned to a little used storage cupboard and placed his hand on a pressure sensitive plate next to it. The door slid open, revealing a tall, blue box._

_“That’s your transport?” she asked in disbelief._

_“That’s it,” he said proudly. He grinned at her._

_“And you travel in it. All alone?”_

_“Yep.” She noticed that he over-pronounced the p in the word, almost making a popping sound as he said it._

_“Speaking as a medical officer in charge of the health and wellbeing, both physical and mental, of a crew of over two hundred, I don’t think you should travel alone. You exhibited an extreme level of self-endangering behavior back there. You could have been killed, and you are very cavalier about it.”_

_His grin faded._

_“Mitsu, I’m fine. Really.”_

_“No, I don’t think you are. I’m worried about you, Doctor. I don’t think you should be alone so much. Perhaps…” Mitsu took a deep breath, “perhaps you’d consider staying here for a bit. With your scientific expertise, we could really use you.”_

_He shook his head. “No,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re asking, but I can’t.”_

_“Then find someone to travel with,” she urged. “You shouldn’t be alone.”_

_“I know you mean well, but you’re wrong. I’m fine. And I used to do that, travel with people. But it didn’t…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Never again.”_

_She watched as he slipped inside his transport and with a loud metal-on-metal sound it dematerialized._

_“Good luck, Doctor,” she whispered as she stared at the empty space in front of her. “I think you’re going to need it.”_

~oOo~

Later, in the afterglow of post-coital bliss, the Doctor and Rose lay in bed, arms around each other and legs entwined.

“You know,” he said, kissing her forehead after he had caught his breath, “you never told me what we were celebrating.”

She looked up at him and gave him a wide smile. “It’s been exactly five months since I found you again,” she told him.

For just a moment, no more than a span of a heartbeat in his singular heart, he gaped at her. Then he smiled, his face lighting up and his eyes crinkling at the corners. He leaned forward and kissed her again, this time slowly pressing his lips to hers, only stopping when they both needed to breathe.

“Yes, it has been,” he said, touching her forehead to his and projecting his love to her. “And that is a perfect reason to celebrate. But Rose, I celebrate that every single day.”


	5. Chapter Four--Parallels and Prophecies

**Chapter Four—Parallels and Prophecies**

The next day, Rose sat cross-legged on the floor of her office in the Hub, staring at the mess surrounding her. Down in Autopsy Owen was playing his LLM album again; based on how loud it was in her office, it must be deafening down there, she thought. She considered closing the door but immediately rejected the idea. It would involve getting up, and she would then feel obligated to do something about the mess while she was up and she really, really didn't want to. What she really wanted were cleaning fairies to come and tidy up the clutter while she was gone, but they had left a few months earlier on one of the shuttles leaving the planet during the whole business with the Kern.

The other reason she wasn't closing the door was that she was beginning to like LLM, in particular one of their songs; she couldn't quite make out the lyrics, but there was just something about the music, something about the pounding beat that spoke to a primal part of her.

Downstairs, the volume of the music dropped, and she could hear the telephone was ringing. She ignored it, figuring that if it were important someone would come and tell her. After a moment the music grew louder again.

She sighed, looking at the piles on the floor. She hated cleaning. And the bins (plural) currently sitting in her office were probably not big enough.

"I need a shovel," she said aloud.

"I beg your pardon?"

Ianto's voice came from the doorway behind her, just barely loud enough to be heard over the music. She twisted around to face him.

"The mess," she said. "I think I need to shovel it out."

He looked around the room, taking in the piles of papers, magazines, alien tech, and who knew what else. "I'd have to agree," he told her. "I can find one for you if you like."

Rose knew he could. Somehow Ianto could put his hands on anything needed within minutes.

"No thanks, Ianto," she replied. "I'm just whinging."

"If you're looking for something else to do, there's been a disturbance at the Riverside Mall that needs to be checked out."

"Hallelujah." Rose jumped up and started out the door. Ianto followed her. "Why didn't you tell me that straight off? Owen, Tosh," she hollered. "We've got a case. Ianto, you hold down the fort."

The music shut off, and Rose, Owen, and Tosh rushed out of the Hub.

"Thank God," Ianto said once they were gone. He vigorously rubbed his ears. "I swear, if I have to listen to _Howling Like a Wolf_ by Los Lobos Malos one more time, I might have to kill someone."

~oOo~

_As night began to fall, the Doctor wandered aimlessly through the market district in Randless City, the capital city of the planet Randless. Randless, the planet, was in the center of the Montadean Nebula, and in the 94th century was populated by equal mixes of humans and aliens alike._

_If anyone had asked, if he had had a traveling companion for example or if he had met someone he knew, he would have told them he was looking for TARDIS parts. But he didn't know anyone there, not in this time period at any rate, so there was no one to ask him._

_He had been there for hours, hands plunged deeply into trouser pockets, walking up and down the bustling streets scouting out the stalls that contained mechanical devices. So far he had found nothing of interest. Part of the reason for this was that he didn't really need anything. For once, the TARDIS wasn't acting up, was taking him where he wanted to go, although he had to admit he hadn't really wanted to come to Randless. But it was as good a place to be as any. Better to be aimless here than to be on the Ood homeworld, he told himself._

_"Aimless in Randless," he said aloud, rolling the syllables around in his mouth. "Aimless in Randless. Aiiiiimmlessss in Rrraaaaannndlessss."_

_Behind him, he heard someone clear his throat. The Doctor turned around. And looked up. And up. An eight-foot tall alien covered in thick, white fur stood behind him, glaring down at him. He (she?) was wearing a chainmail sash and a wide, metallic belt from which a very large, very lethal looking blaster hung. A policeman, or the Randless equivalent, the Doctor realized. He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced apologetically._

_"Sorry," he said, wondering what breach of etiquette he had committed this time._

_"Just don't make a habit of it," the alien said gruffly._

_"Oh, no sir, I won't," the Doctor assured him earnestly._

_"See that you don't."_

_Reminding himself that discretion was the better part of valor, the Doctor decided to return to the TARDIS. After all, there wasn't really anything he needed here. With a small smile and a nod of his head at the officer, he turned and headed the opposite direction, back in the direction he had come from. Before he had gone more than a half a dozen steps, however, he began to smell the sweet scent of pies. His stomach growled loudly, and he realized it had been hours since he had last eaten._

_"There must be a bakery or a café around here somewhere. Suppose a few more minutes here couldn't hurt," he said to himself. "Maybe they have cherry. Maybe, if I'm lucky, even cherry a la mode." He over-pronounced each syllable, as if each was worthy of a sentence in its own right. "Oh, or perhaps banana cream…"_

_The Doctor went in search of the bakery—his nose was very rarely wrong, so he knew it had to be around here somewhere—when somewhere up ahead of him someone started yelling. The pies forgotten, he immediately took off in the direction of the source of the commotion, coat flapping behind him._

~oOo~

Rose ran flat out across Bute Park, thankful she had chosen to wear her black jeans and jumper with her leather jacket and trainers to work today. She had returned to wearing more casual clothes once she had returned to working in Cardiff, as the job in Cardiff always seemed to involve a lot of running. Owen, similarly dressed, followed close behind her, swearing loudly.

This time they were chasing what Torchwood classified as an AUO, or an Alien of Unknown Origin. Whatever it was, it was roughly humanoid in appearance but with chartreuse skin and long canary yellow hair. He (she? it?) had started a panic among the shoppers at the Mall. Not by its appearance—with it wearing jeans and a conservative top with its hair pulled back, the alien's looks were not nearly as extreme as some of the teenagers in the food court—but because it suddenly began to scream and tear apart an upscale clothing boutique.

When they got word of the disturbance, Rose, Owen and Tosh had immediately headed across town in Torchwood's big, black SUV, Rose driving and Tosh in the back on the computer monitoring the police radio frequencies and trying to access the Mall CCTV.

_"I can't tell what it is," Tosh said. "It's not in the Torchwood database, and the translator won't seem to interpret its screaming. If that's what it is."_

_The small television screen built into the back of the passenger seat was showing raw news footage from the helicopters circling above the park._

_"Looks like…" Tosh paused as she studied the screen, "it's on the west side of the park, heading north."_

_"Shit," Owen interjected._

_"Yep," Rose said, and began to pull over. "With no roads near there, we'll have to get out and walk."_

But walking wasn't in the picture. Running was.

The alien was evidently a natural born runner, running through the thick green grass of the fields and sailing over both bushes and benches effortlessly. It led them around the park, along the river, across football pitches and through trees, zigzagging and circling much as a gazelle would across a savannah to get away from predators.

Both Rose and Owen were both in excellent shape, but neither could compete with a gazelle-like humanoid.

Finally things began to turn to their advantage. They knew the park far better than the AUO and managed to herd it towards Cardiff Castle, eventually cornering it against one of the high stone walls of the castle courtyard that served to separate it from the park at large.

Rose slowly approached it, hands in front of her in what she hoped was a gesture of good will while still trying to catch her breath. Owen stood next to her, stun gun in his hand, wheezing loudly.

"I really need to work out more," he said between gasps.

Rose rolled her eyes at his comment. Then she returned to trying to calm the distraught AUO by making soothing sounds. She knew it didn't understand her. Whatever it had been wearing to translate had either been broken or lost in the scuffle at the mall. And Rose knew she couldn't understand it either, at least not without help. The new TARDIS was still far too young to translate for her. So instead, she was wearing a Torchwood translator strapped to her wrist. With a flick of a finger she turned it on. It hummed to life, startling the alien, which stared fearfully at them with deep, forest green eyes.

"Hello," she said.

The alien's eyes darted around, still looking for an escape.

"Is everything alright?" Rose continued. "Can we help you with anything?"

It opened its mouth. A loud screeching sound filled the air that the translator didn't translate, and Owen, still holding the stun gun, put his hands up to his ears.

"Can't you get that thing to shut up?" he asked crossly, trying to make himself heard. "I think my ears are bleeding. Much more of this and I'm going to go deaf."

"Shut it, Owen," Rose ordered. "I'm trying. Tosh was right; evidently the translator isn't programmed for its language."

"And whose fault is that?" he retorted. "It's your boyfriend that upgraded them last."

This time Rose ignored him.

"I can't understand you," she said, addressing the creature in front of her. "I need to ring someone who can." She began to pull her mobile out of her pocket, and the alien started. "Shh, shh, shh," she said. She showed it the mobile and then pressed speed dial.

" _Rose_?" The Doctor's voice came out of the speaker.

"I need a little help," she said softly and evenly so she didn't frighten the alien any more than it already was.

" _Are you alright_?" His voice sounded worried.

"'M fine," she replied. "Just get here soon as you can." She told him where they were before she disconnected and shoved the mobile back in her pocket.

He was there in under three minutes. Rose grinned when she saw him. Despite the urgency of the situation, she couldn't help admiring the view of him striding quickly across the park. His hair stood almost straight up, much as it did when she had first met this him, and he was wearing a snug blue suit that had dark pin striping and a navy blue oxford and tee. He had paired them with coordinating navy blue trainers. Despite all the layers, they did nothing to hide his lean yet muscular build. He was absolutely gorgeous, and he was all hers.

"You're here fast," she said. "What'd ya do, teleport or something?" She didn't think he had a teleportation device, but you could never be sure with him.

"Naaah," he replied, his face lighting up when he saw the alien they had cornered. "Teleportation makes my teeth hurt. I drove."

"But we're fifteen minutes out. On a good day."

"Tosh called me when you got out to chase this beauty," he said without looking at her. Instead he stared in wonder at the creature in front of them. "You're a—" He said something that sounded more like a screech than a word. "You're pretty far from home, aren't you?"

"So you know what it is?" Owen asked.

"Oh, yeah," he said confidently, eyes never leaving the alien. "But she's not an it, she's a her. You can tell by the coloring. Green and yellow for females, turquoise and hot pink for males. Now let's see what your problem is."

He began to carry on what appeared to be a conversation with her but what sounded like a combination of unearthly shrieking, high-pitched wailing, and nails on a chalkboard. In less than a minute, the alien began to calm down a little, the green color of her skin fading slightly as she began to relax. She no longer looked like she wanted to escape, but she still looked very upset.

"What's going on?" Rose asked him when there was a lull in their conversation.

"Seems our friend here was shopping and got separated from her little girl. Missing child, strange planet, she panicked and accidentally knocked over a clothes rack looking for her. The salesperson approached her and she became more agitated, and somehow her translation device fell off and got trampled. Her species is very prone to panicking. On their world, they are considered prey, while humans are universally considered predators."

"Why'd she come here then?" Owen asked in disbelief.

The Doctor shrugged. "The Rift. They are time sensitive, and the Rift is like a spa to them. They soak up the energy and it feels good. It's not much different than humans going someplace to sit in steam rooms, soak in mineral baths, get mud plastered all over them, and get massages." He wrinkled his nose. "Maybe not in that order, otherwise the masseuse would get covered in mud."

Rose rolled her eyes again. "So what now?" she asked.

"Now," he replied, "we reunite mother and child, I fix their translator, and we send them on their way."

"How're we gonna find the kid?" Owen asked.

"Simple. Being time sensitive, they have a very unique brain wave pattern. I just reprogram my sonic to scan for that…" He made a few adjustments to his sonic and then began to scan the area. "This way," he said and then strode off, Rose, Owen and the alien following in his wake.

They ended back in the Riverside Mall, the Doctor periodically shouting at them to hurry up. He finally ended up near the boutique where the disturbance had first started, but then walked past it, only coming to a stop in front of the women's toilet.

"She's in here," he stated. He walked through the door, creating a disturbance of his own. Rose shook her head as women started yelling and screaming. Several women ran out, stating they were going to complain to management and get security. After they had left, she and the alien made their way in.

The Doctor was crouched down at the door to the last stall, making low cooing sounds. He put out his hand, and a little girl with light green skin and yellow pigtails emerged through the door. As soon as she saw her mother she ran to her, and they wrapped their arms around each other.

"There you go," the Doctor said. "Safe and sound." He screeched at the woman, who screeched back, and they both grinned. He then turned to Rose. "Now while we nip into the store where she lost her daughter and find the broken translator, the two of them are going to stay here. After that we'll take them to the Hub while I fix it. Easy as pie."

Then his eyes lit up as he grabbed Rose's hand and they walked towards the door. "You know, Rose, there's a really great pie place just 'round the corner from here. Maybe we should stop there on the way back to the Hub…"

~oOo~

_The Doctor dodged people right and left, jumping over empty packing crates that periodically blocked the narrow pavement. As he rounded a corner, he saw that a crowd had formed in front of a small clothing store. He pushed his way through to the center of the gathering to see a young dark-haired woman frantically searching the area. A few people appeared to be helping her, but most were standing around gawking._

_"Where is she?" she cried. "Help me find her! Please help me find her!"_

_"Who are we looking for?" he asked._

_"My daughter," she told him. "She's five. She has long blonde hair and a pink dress on. She's part Lotician."_

_"So she's telepathic," the Doctor answered. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out from the depths of a pocket of his outer coat and began to scan the area._

_The woman nodded. "Crowds scare her, but we had to come today. This was my only day off this week."_

_The Doctor nodded absently. "Well, luckily," he said, "there are few Loticians around here. They tend to avoid large groups of people due to the cacophony of unshielded thoughts being unwittingly projected into the area." He raised his screwdriver to eye level and frowned. "Hmm, must need to adjust the setting a bit…" He touched a nearly invisible dial on the sonic. The blue light emanating from the tip brightened and the hum increased. This time when he examined the readings, he grinned. "Ha!"_

_He strode down the road, the woman following close behind, calling her daughter's name._

_The Doctor stopped short and held up one hand as he examined the readings again. Then with a gesture that she should follow him, he turned down an alley._

_The little girl was hiding behind some rubbish bins, her pink dress and matching pink shoes just barely visible in the gloom._

_"Alison!" the woman cried._

_At the sound of her mother's voice, the little girl crawled out from her hidey hole, and the Doctor's hearts skipped two beats. With her wide mouth and big brown eyes, her blonde hair up in a side pony tail, she looked like a miniature Rose Tyler._

_He shoved down the thought—he was trying not to think about her these days, no matter how much he still missed her—and helped Alison to her feet._

_Her mother pulled her daughter into her arms, and the little girl started crying._

_"Oh, Alison, you scared me! Don't scare me like that!"_

_"Sorry, Mummy," Alison told her tearfully._

_The woman let go of her daughter and wiped her face with her hands before she stood and faced the Doctor._

_"I'm sorry, I don't know your name."_

_"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor told her._

_"Carena," the woman said. She took his hand and firmly shook it. "Thank you so, so much. I can't begin to tell you—"_

_He smiled at her. "Not a problem. I'm glad to see the two of you back together." He bent down and knelt in front of the little blonde girl. "Now Alison," he said, "why did you run away from your mother?"_

_Alison sniffed loudly and shook her head. "I didn't run away. I was trying to see the stars. Yesterday my teacher Miss Gordon said there were stars in the sky, but Bobby said she was a liar and there weren't any such thing and I told him he was the liar, that there were too stars."_

_"So since it was getting dark, you wanted to see if you could see them so you could prove you were right," the Doctor guessed._

_The little girl nodded vigorously and then looked up. "But I looked and looked and didn't see any."_

_The Doctor and Carena followed her gaze. The darkening sky was a burnt orange._

_"And then I couldn't find Mummy," Alison continued, "and everyone was so loud…"_

_"So you came back here and hid," Carena finished. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Alison."_

_Still looking at the sky, the Doctor stood. He scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. "Well, you're never going to see any stars here, I'm afraid, not with the planet being in the middle of a nebula." He glanced down at Alison, who looked crushed._

_Brow furrowed and lips pursed, he considered the little girl. The miniature Rose Tyler lookalike. Finally he sighed. He hated disappointing children, and he'd never been able to resist Rose Tyler, evidently couldn't even resist her pint-sized double._

_"Well," he said, "there might be something I can do about that," he glanced at Carena, "with your mother's permission, of course."_

~oOo~

An hour later, the alien's translator fixed, Rose and the Doctor sat at the conference table with the two aliens eating slices of the pies the Doctor had bought. The other members of the staff had already finished theirs and had returned to work: Owen to autopsy, Tosh to her computer, and Ianto to his station in the Tourist Office. Rose had thought when they had purchased them that there'd be enough pie left over for him to have some for the next few days, but she chided herself for even thinking that as the Doctor had had a large slice of each and was rapidly demolishing the rest.

"Wha…" he said when he realized she was staring at him with an eyebrow raised. He swallowed and continued. "I didn't have breakfast."

"I would like to thank you again for helping me find Kolly," said the alien, whose name sounded something like Farina through the translator. She spoke slowly, trying to moderate her tone in her own language and the translator picked up on that. She looked down and smiled at her daughter, who was too busy eating her second slice of cherry pie to pay attention. "I do not know what I would have done with-out you all. Es-pe-cial-ly you, Dok-tor."

Instead of boasting that it was something no one else could have done, which was actually true in this case, he gave her a warm smile, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Think nothing of it. I'm happy to help reunite a family," he said.

Farina nodded once, so deeply it was almost a bow. "I can see why that is so, Lord of Time. You had been long sep-ar-a-ted from your own mate."

The Doctor looked at her sharply. "How did you know that?" he asked. "How did you know I am part Time Lord, and how did you know Rose and I were separated, let alone that she's my… mate?" The last word was with a sideways glance at Rose. The term was technically accurate but not one either of them would have used.

Farina shook her head in a gesture that looked to be the equivalent of an eye roll. "Time traces sur-round both you and your mate. They are quite clear."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and exchanged glances with Rose, who shrugged. Her mobile began to ring, and she pulled it out of her jeans pocket and glanced at the display. When she saw who was on the phone she stood up.

"Sorry," she apologized to the alien woman. "I've got to take this." _It's Dad_ , she mouthed to the Doctor, who nodded.

As Rose walked out of the room to take the call, Farina stood up as well. "We have im-posed on you enough. Kolly, I think it is time for us to go," she said. She began to follow Rose out of the room. As the Doctor stepped aside to allow Kolly to follow them, he felt her small hand take his. He looked down to see the small alien girl staring up at him intently.

"The two shall be reunited," she told him. It was the first thing she had said since he had found her, and she said it in her native language, so he wasn't entirely certain he understood her.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"The two shall be reunited," she repeated firmly.

“The two shall be reunited? What does that mean?”

Instead of answering, she simply let go of his hand and grinned at him. Then she turned and skipped out of the room.

As he stared after her, wondering what on Earth she could have meant, Rose stuck her head back in the room. "We've got to go. Dad needs us back in London."

~oOo~

_A half an hour later, the three were sitting in the doorway of the TARDIS as it hung in space. The Doctor had parked her just outside the nebula. Alison sat between the two adults, staring in front of her in wonder as the Doctor pointed out different stellar objects._

_"Now that one is a red giant," he said, "And the one next to it, that's a yellow dwarf. Just like the star your planet circles around, but yours is located in the nebula."_

_"That big cloud thing over there?" Alison asked._

_"Yep," he answered and grinned at her. "That big cloud thing over there."_

_"Which star are you from?" Carena asked._

_The Doctor's smile faded. "Well…" He cleared his throat. "Well, you can't really see it from here."_

_"What about that one?" Alison asked excitedly._

_"Oh, that?" the Doctor asked, grateful for the change of subject. "Now that isn't a star at all. It's actually a galaxy."_

_"What's its name?"_

_"Now don't be silly, Alison," Carena said. "Things like stars and galaxies don't have names."_

_"Actually they do," the Doctor corrected. "It's just those names vary from culture to culture. For instance that one," he pointed it out, "is called the Milky Way by your ancestors, but was called Mutter's Spiral by my people."_

_"So what's that one's name?" the little girl asked again._

_"Hmm…" The Doctor's brow furrowed. "You know, I don't think that one has a name. But," he grinned at the little girl, "as we are the first ones to have discovered it, it's our privilege to give it a name. And I think it should be named…" he paused dramatically, "the Alison Galaxy."_

_Alison giggled, and the Doctor smiled at her, feeling lighthearted for the first time in what felt like years._

~oOo~

_"Thank you so much," Carena said later as they got out of the TARDIS back on Randless. "For finding Alison, for the trip… Thank you for everything."_

_"You're very welcome," he replied, giving both of them a soft smile. "It was my pleasure."_

_"Alison, don't you have anything to say?" Carena asked, trying to prompt her daughter into thanking the Doctor as well._

_Alison took his hand. Her face fell as she stared up at him. "Your song is ending, isn't it?"_

_He blinked. "Uh…"_

_"It is, isn't it?" she asked, wide-eyed. "What does that mean, your song is ending?"_

_"Alison!" her mother hissed. "Manners!"_

_"No, it's… it's quite all right," he said to Carena. Then he looked down at Alison again. "It's… nothing. It's nothing for you to worry about."_

_"Are you going to be alright?" Carena asked._

_"Oh, yeah," he told her with false enthusiasm. "I'm always alright."_

_Alison flung herself at him impulsively, and he lifted her up to return the hug. "Goodbye, Doctor," she said into his suit jacket. "I'll miss you."_

_"I'll miss you too," he said._

_After Carena and Alison had left, the Doctor returned to the TARDIS. As he stood at the console, in his mind he returned to the image of the Ood in front of Adelaide Brooke's home. The voice of Ood Sigma echoed in his ears._

_"I think your song must end soon."_

_Then the voice of Carmen, whom he had met on the bus that had gone through the wormhole._

_"…you be careful. Because your song is ending, sir."_

_And now Alison._

_"Your song is ending, isn't it?"_

_His jaw tightened in determination. "Not if I can help it."_

_And with a jerk on the controls he threw the TARDIS into the Vortex._


	6. Chapter Five--Together and Alone

**Chapter Five—Together and Alone**

_As the TARDIS hung in the Time Vortex, the Doctor stared unseeing at the console, lost in thought. Instead of the controls in front of him, in his mind’s eye he saw the little blonde girl, Alison, whom he had reunited with her mother. Despite his best efforts to put her out of his mind, the girl’s voice continued to echo in his ears._

_"Your song is ending, isn't it?"_

_It was. It was ending. Not only had the Ood prophesied it, but he could feel it. In the same way that he could feel the storm coming before he had lost Rose at Canary Wharf, he could feel the fact that his song was ending. And soon. He could feel it in his bones._

_And it was his own fault. He knew that as well as he knew his own name._

_A vision of Mars, of Bowie Base One burning replaced the vision of Alison, and the sound of his own voice replaced that of the little girl’s._

_“The laws of time are mine. They will obey me. I’m the winner. The Time Lord Victorious.”_

_And then in his mind he heard the sound of a gunshot._

_In arrogance and madness, he had made a mistake, more than a mistake, and one with deadly consequences._

_And now his song was ending. Some would say rightly so._

_Adelaide would have._

_Since Adelaide’s suicide, he had tried to make up for his role in it, had worked harder and run faster than ever to try and fix things that had gone wrong in the Universe, but he could tell it hadn’t been enough._

_A little voice in his head whispered that nothing he did would ever be enough._

_It wasn’t fair._

_He wasn’t ready._

_The Doctor scrubbed his face with his hands in an attempt to force the thoughts from his brain. Then he took a deep breath and let it out in a rush._

_“Okay,” he said aloud to no one since there was no one else there, “where to next?”_

~oOo~

“Okay, Gwen, we’re heading out,” Rose said into her mobile. As soon as Pete had phoned and asked them to return to London, speaking in an official capacity as Director of Torchwood and Rose’s boss rather than as her stepfather, she and the Doctor had rushed home from the Hub to pack. Now she was standing just inside the doorway of their house, waiting for the Doctor to bring their suitcases down from the bedroom. 

She glanced up the stairs, wondering what was taking him so long. “No, I’m not sure exactly when we’ll be back. We’ll be gone at least a couple of days, but it could be as much as a week. No, I still don’t know what he wants, just that he wants us back there for a bit. But if things get really crazy, ring us and we’ll come back early, yeah? Thanks. You too.”

She rang off and shoved the phone into her jeans pocket. 

“All set?” she called.

“Yep.” The Doctor appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a suitcase in each hand. “This is a bit rubbish, you know,” he said as he made his way down the stairs.

She stared at him in surprise. “But I thought you wanted to help Dad.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said, setting the bags down on the floor. “Of course I do. It’s the luggage that’s rubbish. I used to be able to carry everything we needed in my pockets. I miss my coat.” He sighed heavily. “Janis Joplin gave me that coat.”

“Janis Joplin gave you that coat,” Rose said at the same exact time. She rolled her eyes.

He shot her a look. “I’ve been repeating myself, have I?”

“A bit,” she said in that tone of voice that immediately told him it was a lot more than just a bit. She smirked at him teasingly. “Y’know, that’s one of the first signs of old age, repeating yourself.”

“Oi, I’m not old!” he protested indignantly. “I’m nine hundred and six. Each regeneration is capable of living thousands of years, so for a Time Lord being nine hundred and six means I’m barely out of my teens. And this body is only five months old. You’re a cradle robber, that’s what you are, Rose Tyler.”

“Ha!” she said. “There’s no way I’m the cradle robber, Mr. Nine Hundred and Six. Besides, I doubt you even are nine hundred and six. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a whole lot older than that.” He glanced away from her for the briefest moment, and her eyebrows shot up. “You are, aren’t you? How old are you really?”

“Nine hundred and six,” he replied, but his eyes shifted uncomfortably and there was the slightest edge of uncertainty in his tone, something even she wouldn’t have caught if they hadn’t been together so long. She looked at him suspiciously.

“You sure about that?”

When he didn’t answer immediately she laughed and picked up one of the suitcases. He picked up the other. 

“You’re gonna tell me eventually, you know,” she told him as she headed out the door. “I have ways of making you talk.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Things you learned at Torchwood?” he asked.

She turned back and grinned, the tip of her tongue touching her upper teeth. “Oh, no,” she said. “These things I definitely did _not_ learn at Torchwood.”

He slowly grinned back as understanding hit. “Oh, I can’t wait for you to try.”

~oOo~

Ten minutes later the Doctor and Rose were driving through Cardiff in the old Ford Mondeo, with the Doctor behind the wheel. Although the Mini Cooper was decades newer and far more fuel efficient, the Mondeo was much roomier than Rose’s sub-compact car and therefore much more comfortable for someone as tall as he was. 

Rose would have been happy to drive; she considered herself a much better driver than he was, and not because of his tendencies to drive too fast or dart around other vehicles impatiently when the traffic was moving too slowly to suit him. No, his main problem was that despite his enormous intellect, he was far too distractible. His short attention span hadn’t caused an accident though, and hopefully never would, and since he preferred driving to being a passenger, she didn’t protest. She actually preferred him driving as well since he was a lousy passenger, constantly fidgeting in his seat, fiddling with the sound system or the environmental controls, or tapping his fingers impatiently on the arm rest. It was a toss-up as to which was worse, being a passenger with him driving, or driving with him as a passenger. She was looking forward to avoiding the whole problem once the TARDIS was ready to travel in, although she had to admit he really wasn’t all that great driving the TARDIS either. At least while he was piloting the TARDIS, he had the ship herself to help him.

Because it was late afternoon in early December, it was growing dark as they approached the entrance onto the M4. People were beginning to get off work, and traffic was backing up. As they stopped at a traffic light, up ahead, next to the entrance to the motorway, stood a glowing billboard advertising Vitex. Pete Tyler’s grinning face looked down at them from it. 

As the Doctor gaped at it, Pete’s image lifted up a bottle of Vitex as if he were giving a toast. 

“What is it?” Rose asked.

Unable to tear his eyes from the advert, he asked, “How long has that been there?”

“I dunno. Months, probably. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it before,” she said. “Just like I’m surprised you didn’t notice that the light turned green.”

Behind them, cars began to honk, and the Doctor began to pull forward. As they passed the billboard, he craned his neck back to try to see it again.

“But that slogan…” he said. “Whatever happened to ‘Trust me on this’?”

Rose shrugged. “I dunno. You’d have to ask Dad. As you might recall, I’ve been a bit busy for the last year or so. Why?”

“It’s just that slogan, ‘the two shall be reunited’… that little girl we found, Kolly, she said that to me.”

“Really? When was that?”

“Right as they were leaving. Before she left the conference room, Kolly stopped and said to me, ‘The two shall be reunited’,” the Doctor told her.

“Huh. She probably heard it somewhere while they’ve been here. It’s been everywhere, on the radio, on telly…”

“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “But the weird thing is that she said it in her language. If she were just repeating something she’d heard in English, you’d think she’d have said it in English.”

They both fell silent. As they reached the city limits, they passed another advert for Vitex. Pete’s image winked at them. “It’s probably nothing,” she said, sinking back in her seat. “You know, how when you hear something somewhere, then you notice it all day long. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She wasn’t looking at him, and he wondered if she really believed what she had said. After all, he had basically said the same thing to her when they had first noticed the phrase Bad Wolf had been appearing wherever they had gone.

And look how that had turned out.

~oOo~

Several hours later, the Doctor and Rose pulled up the long, gravel drive of the mansion and parked near the garage behind the house. Pete’s black SUV wasn’t there. 

As they got out of the car, Tony immediately ran out the door to greet them. He ran up to the Doctor and practically tackled him as he pulled the luggage out of the boot.

“Doctor! Doctor!” he cried. 

“What about 'Rose, Rose'?” Rose asked in amusement.

“Hello, sport,” the Doctor said, lifting Rose’s little brother up into his arms. 

“Will you read me a story?” Tony asked.

“Tony,” Rose scolded. “Don’t be rude. We just got here.”

They both ignored her.

“Oooh, I don’t know,” the Doctor said in mock-seriousness. “Have you been a good boy?”

Tony nodded vigorously. “Yep. I ate all of my dinner, and I put away my toys, and I didn’t even hit Samantha when she tried to kiss me at her birthday party.”

From behind the Doctor, Rose snorted.

The Doctor nodded gravely. “Sounds like you have been very good. I definitely think a story is in order.” He winked at him, and the small boy began to wiggle with excitement. 

“But that’ll have to wait till later,” Jackie said, having heard the conversation as she exited the house. She made her way over to Rose and hugged her as the Doctor put Tony back down on the ground. 

As Rose picked Tony up to hug him, Jackie turned to hug the Doctor.

“C’mere you,” she said and planted an overly wet kiss on his cheek. He tried to hide a grimace of disgust, not particularly successfully, and Rose snickered at him.

“Tony, why don’t you go to your room to play until it’s time for your bath,” Jackie said. When the little boy began to whinge, she gave him a gentle push in the right direction. “Go on, little man.” He headed off grudgingly, and they followed him into the house. 

Once inside the kitchen, the Doctor noticed that there had been subtle changes to the room since the last time they had been there. The granite countertops had been replaced with ones that were similar, but not identical. The walls, while still yellow, had been freshly painted in a shade that was a little more subdued. Even the cabinets had been refinished. The Doctor remembered that when Pete had been arrested for treason, in the process of searching for evidence UNIT troops had done extensive damage not only to furnishings, but walls, ceilings, floors… It had taken more than a month to complete repairs, and during that time Jackie and Tony had stayed in Cardiff, in the flat Pete had purchased as an investment for Vitex. They had even celebrated Tony’s birthday while they had been staying out there. Since there hadn’t been any compelling reason for them to go back to London, he and Rose hadn’t been back to the mansion in months.

Jackie plopped herself down at the table that had been moved to one end of the room. “Lydia McDonald’s granddaughter had her birthday party here. Forty of her and Tony’s little friends runnin’ round the place all afternoon, whoopin’ and hollerin’, bouncin’ off the walls and the ceiling, all sugared up from birthday cake, ice cream and punch. I had a devil of a time gettin’ Tony to sit still long enough to have tea. We’ll have ours when Pete gets here. Rose, would you pour me a cuppa? I’m exhausted, completely exhausted.”

“None for me,” said the Doctor to Rose’s surprise. “I’m just going to take the bags upstairs to our room.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he looked startled and Rose grinned, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“Our room,” she mouthed and gave him a wink.

He grinned and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Jackie made a face. “Can’t the two of you go five minutes without flirtin’?”

Rose laughed. “Nope,” she answered. “And I don’t want to either.”

Before he had to listen to Jackie’s response, the Doctor quickly fled the room. 

He made his way to the second floor, taking in new carpets, drapes, and wallpaper, but once he was in front of his old room he paused. He had automatically walked there, but was that where they were going to stay? Or would they be sleeping in Rose’s old bedroom, which was right next door?

Or would Jackie insist they sleep separately?

He snorted. Regardless of what Jackie wanted, that wasn’t going to happen. 

He stood there, lost in thought, as he considered the problem. Finally he nodded decisively.

“Both,” he said to himself.

“Both what?” came a voice from behind him.

He turned to see Rose standing at the top of the stairs, looking at him curiously.

“Oh, Rose, I didn’t hear you come up,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out which room to put the luggage in.”

She snickered. “‘S not rocket science,” she said. “Just pick one.”

“That’s what I was trying to do when I was so rudely interrupted.”

“So where does ‘both’ come in?” She stared at him in disbelief. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that we sleep in separate beds, are you?”

“Oh, no.” He grinned. “I had just come to the conclusion that I should shag you in both.”

She burst out laughing. “I could live with that. But whatever happened to not wanting to shag at the mansion?”

“Weell, I might have changed my opinion on that,” he said as he opened the door to Rose’s old room and carried their luggage inside. Here as elsewhere, the décor had changed slightly, no doubt due to needed repairs after UNIT’s search. He set the small cases down on the floor. “The thought of not being with you for two days or more…” He shuddered. “I don’t know how I managed to hold out when I first got here. I don’t know how I managed to hold out while we were traveling in the TARDIS.”

“I don’t know how you did, either,” she said, following him through the door. “Jack was always pushing us together, we spent all that time alone, I kept on wearing all those tight tops and jeans, short skirts, bikinis…”

He turned and stared at her in amazement. “You mean all those outfits you used to wear, you were trying to…”

“Get you to shag me?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly. She closed the short distance between them. “Well, yeah. Y’know, for a self-proclaimed genius, you aren’t half-thick sometimes.”

Rose grabbed handfuls of his shirt and yanked him down to her. He went willingly, closing his eyes with the kiss, with the stray thought crossing the back of his mind that she had definitely been right, on this subject at least. Lots of his former companions had worn skimpy clothing as it was the style popular during the age that they had come from, others had continued to dress in the period costumes they were from despite traveling with him to different planets and different times. He had thought Rose was the same, just wearing the clothing she was comfortable with, coming from the 21st century as she had.

He had of course noticed she was attractive—well, gorgeous actually—in her tight jeans and tops, and he had known she had found him attractive as well, even before his regeneration. But the thought that she had been interested in seducing him and had chosen her clothing specifically with that aim in mind… Well. He had been thick. Possibly intentionally so. But if he had known it could be like this with her….

He would have said sod his self-imposed rule about not getting involved with his traveling companions. And sod being the Last of the Time Lords. He would have taken her after the business with the werewolf. He would have taken her in the applegrass on New Earth.

Who was he kidding? He would have taken her after dancing with her around the console the night everybody lived. Possibly even against the console after Jack had gone to bed.

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, he lost himself in the feel of her lips, so soft and inviting, moving against his, the feel of her teeth ever-so-slightly nipping at him, just the hint of her tongue touching the tip of his. Her hands moved upward, one to caress the back of his neck, the other to brush through his hair. He groaned at the sensation and moved his hands to cup her bum and gently thrust his hips forward.

He felt a feeling of profound loss when she pulled back, and he leaned forward, trying to follow her mouth with his. She gently pushed him, thankfully only separating them by inches. He opened his eyes to see her giving him a cheeky grin.

“Is that a screwdriver in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

He laughed at the cheesy line, after all he was known for them as well.

“Both, actually.” He shifted his hips so she could feel his sonic press against her hip before he pulled it out of his pocket. He aimed it at the door to the hall, and it swung shut and locked. He then pointed it at the door to the en suite. “There,” he said with a smirk as they heard the click of the lock. “Strong enough to hold back even the likes of Jackie Tyler.”

One hand still firmly cupping her bum, he shoved the sonic back into his pocket with the other before moving it to tangle in her hair. He lowered his lips to hers and backed up until his knees hit the bed. He sat down and leaned back, pulling her with him. 

She giggled, and he felt the vibration of her chest against his. It went straight to his groin. He pulled one of her legs over his hip.

“Y’know,” she said, “I was supposed to come up and tell you that Dad’s home, and it’s almost time to eat.”

He flipped her onto her back. “Then we’d better not waste any time,” he said, and he lowered his mouth to her throat.

~oOo~

_“Where to next?” the Doctor said again._

_It was a rhetorical question; being alone in the TARDIS he didn’t really expect an answer. In fact, he would have been more worried had he gotten one. From anyone other than himself, of course._

_“Nowhere I really need to be,” he continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Shall I set the controls on random?”_

_The TARDIS was silent. Not a beep, not a blip, not even a flash of light from the Time Rotor. He looked up at the ceiling._

_“No opinion, eh? Or at least you aren’t saying if you have one. Well, if you have no opinion, how is the randomizer going to work?”_

_When he again received no response, he raised an eyebrow at the Time Rotor. “Well, I’m setting the controls on random anyway, whether you like it or not,” he said petulantly. “You’ll just have to deal with it.”_

_The TARDIS didn’t answer, so the Doctor began walking around the console again, setting the controls of the Randomizer._

_“Just pick somewhere interesting this time,” he said. He sighed. “Somewhere distracting… so I don’t have to think.”_

_He pulled on the lever to materialize, and the claxons began to sound. A light on the console began to flash in mauve. He grinned._

_“That works!”_


	7. Chapter Six--Red Maws and White Walls

**Chapter Six—Red Maws and White Walls**

_The Doctor raced around the console to the scanner, the blinking mauve warning lights on the console lighting up his face as they flashed. The deafening sound of emergency claxons filled the room._

_On the scanner, the only thing visible was the color red._

_"What?" the Doctor exclaimed. His long, slender fingers danced over the controls. The monitor zoomed out, and again only revealed the color red._

_"What?" he exclaimed again. He zoomed out again, only to reveal… teeth._

_"What!" he cried in disbelief. He sped back to the opposite side of the console, flipping switches on the way, and spun the TARDIS away from the giant mouth._

_Once the TARDIS was out of danger, he sighed in relief. "That was close. Too close. What the hell was that thing?"_

_Putting on his glasses, he returned to the scanner and squinted at the display. He zoomed out yet again. On the screen appeared what looked to be a long, flexible tube with a gigantic opening at one end. An opening with row upon row of long, pointed teeth._

_"A space worm?" He stared up at the Time Rotor. "We were almost eaten by a space worm? What were you thinking? When I said I wanted a distraction I didn't mean I wanted to be eaten. That's a bit extreme, don't you think?"_

_He sighed again, loudly this time, in both frustration and relief: frustration because the TARDIS seemed to be trying to teach him a lesson in being careful what you wish for; relief, again, because in the end he hadn't been eaten._

_"Alright, let's take a closer look at that thing," he said. He adjusted the monitor again. Its skin was glowing, shining from within, iridescent colors flashing sporatically all over the worm's body. Its teeth, shark-like in shape and likely in sharpness as well, glistened like pearls._

_"Oh, a Red Carnivorous Maw. Never thought I'd see one in person. Beautiful," he breathed. "Gorgeous. Deadly, but gorgeous. And moving incredibly quickly. Now let's see where you're headed in such a hurry."_

_He reversed the view. A beautiful Earthlike planet, blue-green in color, was directly in the worm's path._

_"Now that, that is not good."_

~oOo~

When the Doctor and Rose finally made it down to the dining room, Jackie had already finished eating and Pete had a slice of treacle tart and a cup of coffee in front of him. As they entered the room, Pete looked up at them and raised one eyebrow. Jackie, on the other hand, glared at them both.

"Honestly, Rose," she said in disgust, "couldn't the two of you at least have waited until after dinner?"

The Doctor looked down at himself and then at Rose. No mussed hair, no unbuttoned or untucked clothing… On the other hand, Rose did have the glow of the recently, and thoroughly, shagged. A smug smile began to creep across his face.

Rose ignored her mother and sat down at the table. The Doctor followed suit, and Pete passed them a variety of dishes that contained their dinner. As they filled their plates, Jackie stood up.

"Would have been nice for all of us to eat together, especially since I haven't seen my daughter in months," she said pointedly, addressing the Doctor. "But you took so long 'bringing the luggage upstairs' that now it's time for Tony's bath." She left the room, closing the door behind her, and Rose turned to her stepfather.

"What's up, Dad?" she asked.

"Yeah, why the emergency trip to London?" the Doctor added. "Another invasion?"

Pete shook his head. "No, nothing like that," he assured them. "I need to ask the two of you a favor, and I wanted to do it in person."

The Doctor and Rose exchanged puzzled glances.

"Whatever you need, you just have to name it," the Doctor told him. "You know that."

Pete shook his head. "Hear me out first before you agree," he said. "You know that Congress has approved a special election for president since Brian Greene resigned. Everyone expects Harriet Jones to win by a landslide and didn't expect Frobisher to put up more than a token run. But he's surprised everyone. In an effort to win the support of both parties, in addition to undoing everything that Greene put through, he's agreeing to support almost everything everyone wants: additional money for schools, museums, parks, all those things that Harriet was accused of neglecting while she was president. Plus," he paused, as though the next thing he had to say was difficult, "he has agreed to finally shut down Torchwood One."

"I heard about that," the Doctor said.

"You've wanted that for years," Rose said.

Pete nodded. "Yep. I've been slowly pulling out of Canary Wharf ever since we got Torchwood Four up and running. Torchwood One only has business offices right now: accounting, payroll and the like. But before we can completely withdraw from Canary Wharf, we need to make certain that all forms of alien tech have been removed. And that's where you come in. I'd like you to come in and scan for advanced technology. Including in the lever room."

The Doctor glanced over at Rose. Her face was carefully schooled to be expressionless, not even hinting at her feelings, but when he reached out and took her hand, she clutched it so tightly her knuckles went white. He placed his other hand on top of hers and rubbed it comfortingly, and she relaxed her grip slightly.

"You don't have to do this," Pete said, looking directly at Rose. "Neither of you do. R & D could do it if you don't want to."

She shook her head. "No. We'll do it. You don't have anyone better than the Doctor." She stood up. "I'm not hungry," she said. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna…" She jerked her head at the door and then walked out of the room. The Doctor jumped up and followed.

"Rose," he said, and she stopped and turned around. "Rose, are you alright?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. 'M fine. I just…" She shrugged. He pulled her into his arms. She melted into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder and hugging him tightly. After several long moments, she pulled away. "I'm going up to our room."

"Do you want me to come with?" he asked.

She shook her head again. "No. You stay and talk to Dad. See what he needs." She gave him a small smile. "Besides, you need to eat. I just… need to be alone for a little bit." She stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss before turning and heading up the staircase.

Troubled, he watched her go, only returning to the dining room after she had disappeared.

~oOo~

_"Get me your leader!" the Doctor shouted over the communication relay in the TARDIS. "Your planet is in danger!"_

_"I'm sorry," said the young man on the screen curtly. "She is currently unavailable. But I can check to see if her assistant can take the call."_

_"No, I don't want her— " He broke off as bad instrumental music filled the TARDIS. He swore under his breath and disconnected, then tried again._

_"Government of Sophiana, President Bushard's office," the young man said._

_"Listen, this is an emergency! I don't want to be transferred, I don't want to be put on hold, I need to talk to the President! It's vital!"_

_"I'm sorry, she's unavailable at the moment. If I may just put you on hold— "_

_"No! I've been on hold!" The Doctor took a deep breath and moderated his tone. "What's your name?"_

_"Julian. I'm the assistant to the assistant to the personal assistant to the president."_

_"Okay, now listen, Julian," the Doctor said. "It's very, very important I talk with Madame Bushard. Tell her it's the Doctor."_

_"The Doctor? Doctor who?"_

_The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I really don't have time for this," he said under his breath. Then he continued at a normal volume. "Just the Doctor. I promise you, she'll speak to me."_

_"One moment, please." And the TARDIS was filled with music again. Within seconds, on the screen appeared the leader of Sophiana: a red-skinned woman whose silver and black hair was artfully arranged and piled high on the crown of her head. It was held in place by an ornate silver tiara studded with colorful gemstones and engraved with the symbols of her office._

_"Doctor," she said warmly. "How are you? I see you've changed again."_

_"I'm fine, but we don't really have time for pleasantries. Sophiana is about to be consumed by a giant space worm called the Red Carnivorous Maw."_

_Her eyes widened in shock. "What can we do?"_

_"Not a heck of a lot," he said. "But I can. Madame Bushard, I'm in position now. I'm going to loop the TARDIS's shields around the worm's belly like a leash and pull it away from your planet and to an unpopulated area of space. When I do this, the creature is probably going to fight it. When it does, it will exert a gravitational pull on Sophiana which could create a little bit of shaking down there." He paused and rubbed the back of his neck ruefully. "Well, I say a little bit… it'll be more like planet-wide earthquakes upwards of 10.6 on the Richter scale. Sorry about that."_

_"No matter, Doctor," she told him. "Better an earthquake than the entire planet being eaten."_

_He nodded. "Well, there is that," he agreed._

~oOo~

"Is she alright?" Pete asked.

"No," the Doctor answered. "But she's a very strong woman. She will be."

Pete nodded. "You know, she hasn't ever been back to the lever room, not since that first day. That first day she wouldn't leave for anything. She insisted on staying for hours. She was absolutely convinced you'd come for her. Mickey told us it was because you once told her to always wait five and a half hours, and she was bound and determined to do just that. Finally, after about seven hours had passed, Jackie convinced her to go, and we brought her back here. She went into her bedroom and stayed there three days."

The Doctor leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table in front of him. He let out a heavy sigh. "I was a bit of a mess myself. Took months to figure out how to just send a message." He began to rub his forehead, a move that turned into rubbing his eye vigorously. "And I didn't treat my next traveling companion very well. Martha."

"Martha Jones?" Pete asked, surprised.

The Doctor nodded. "The parallel version of the one you know. She was wonderful, very patient with me, far more than I deserved." He leaned back in his chair. "Not that she didn't tell me off on occasion, but she knew I was in a bad way and she was just trying to snap me out of it."

"But she couldn't."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no she couldn't."

"Mickey tried with Rose. You shoulda heard the rows."

The Doctor laughed ruefully, one short sound that was barely audible. "I can imagine. Rose told me that's when the two of you decided she should go to Cardiff."

Pete nodded. "Change of scenery, bit of distance…"

"And it worked, cos look at her now," the Doctor said proudly.

"Yeah," Pete agreed.

They fell silent as they both recollected on that time immediately following the battle of Canary Wharf. After a few moments, Pete began to tell the Doctor of his strategy to scan Torchwood One for both alien tech and dangerous human technology. The Doctor only half listened.

"Are you alright?" Pete asked when he finished outlining his plan. "Cos you're rubbing your hand again." 

The Doctor glanced down at his hand in surprise. He was indeed rubbing his right hand with his left, and he hadn't noticed he was doing it.

"You used to do that when you first got here," Pete continued. "Is it some sort of a nervous habit or something?"

"No," the Doctor answered. "Just aches sometimes."

"So what do you think?"

"About what?" he asked blankly.

"About my plan," Pete said, slightly exasperated.

"Oh, sorry," the Doctor apologized. "Wasn't really listening. I was a bit distracted."

"By what?" Pete asked.

"Actually," the Doctor said slowly, sounding puzzled, "by the color red."

~oOo~

_"Madame President, are you ready down there?"_

_"As ready as we'll ever be, Doctor," she replied._

_With one hand firmly grasping the console, his other hand hovered over the controls for the TARDIS shields. "Okay. On the count of three. One. Two. Three! Allons-y!"_

_With a flip of his wrist, and a nudge of his toe on a control too far away for him to reach, the shields extended and elongated. It took the Doctor three tries, but he managed to maneuver the TARDIS so that the shields wrapped around the center of the worm. The TARDIS jerked, hard, pulling the makeshift lasso tight, and despite trying to hold on he was thrown to the floor. He jumped up and sped to the other side of the console thinking the last time he had tried anything like this he'd had a roomful of people helping._

_It was a bit different, and quite a bit harder, all by himself._

_As the space worm bucked, the engines whined and the TARDIS shook hard enough that it felt like it was going to fly apart. But she managed to hold on to the worm. Inside, the Doctor clung to the console, holding on for dear life._

_"Come on, come on, I know you can do it, old girl," he said encouragingly over the noise in the room._

_Slowly, slowly, the Maw reduced its bucking, and the TARDIS began the long process of towing it to a place in the galaxy filled with unpopulated planets. Days later, he released the worm and returned to Sophiana through the Time Vortex, arriving only hours after he'd left._

_This time the assistant to the assistant to the personal assistant put him directly through to the president._

_"All done," he said as soon as her face appeared on the monitor. "How's the damage down there?"_

_"Thankfully minimal, Doctor. We are used to quakes on Sophiana," she said. "We are all eternally grateful to you."_

_"No thanks necessary," he said, smiling at her._

_"We'd like to hold a banquet in your honor, Doctor," she told him._

_A stricken look came across his face. "Thanks, but if it's all the same to you, I'm not really one for banquets."_

_"I remember," she said with a laugh. "I really didn't expect you'd accept. But our seer has a message for you."_

_"A seer?" He grimaced. "Not really one for prophecies either. Haven't really had good luck with them. Besides, Madame Bushard, if your seer's any good, why didn't he predict the Maw?"_

_"Oh, he did," the president said. "It's just no one believed him when he said a giant mouth would try to eat the planet."_

_The Doctor tugged on his left ear. "Well, it is a bit unbelievable."_

_She laughed. "Just a bit, yes. But because he was correct in this, he received a promotion. Personal seer to the office of the president."_

_Now the Doctor laughed. "Well, congratulations to him."_

_"I will be certain to tell him you said so," she said. She paused for a moment before continuing. "Doctor, he really was quite insistent on you receiving the message."_

_He sighed. "Well, alright. What's the message?"_

_"It was just one word," she told him. "'Soon.' Does that mean anything to you?"_

_"Unfortunately…" The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yes."_

~oOo~

On his way up to their room, the Doctor stopped by Tony's in order to fulfill his promise to read to the little boy. Instead, as soon as he got there he saw Jackie quietly tiptoe out of Tony's bedroom, closing the door partway as she left.

"You'll have to read to him tomorrow, Doctor," she said quietly, more quietly than he had ever heard her speak before. "He was all tuckered out from this afternoon, poor dear. I found him asleep on the floor, and I just stuck him in bed."

With a small smile, the Doctor nodded and headed upstairs.

When he got to their room, Rose was curled up in an overstuffed chair, staring out the window. She didn't turn, didn't even seem to notice he had entered. As the door closed behind him with a soft click, he slowly crossed over to her and knelt down on the floor beside her.

"Rose," he said quietly. "Are you alright?"

She nodded as she turned to face him. She looked calm, but he could see the tracks of the tears that had run down her face. He gently wiped a stray tear away with his thumb.

She took his hand in both of hers, and he softly smiled at her. They always held hands. They had always held hands. The first thing they had ever done was hold hands. She gently squeezed, and he squeezed back, wordlessly communicating comfort and love to her.

"I know you're here with me," she said, looking down at their clasped hands. "But somehow, thinking of that room, that wall…" She shook her head. "Something's coming."

"Nothing is coming, I promise you. Nothing is going to separate us." He knew she didn't believe him, and he wasn't certain he entirely believed it himself. "I won't let it," he said firmly, as much to convince himself as to convince her.

"'S funny," she said, not answering him. "I've fought Daleks and Cybermen, seen my parallel mum be Cyberized and my real father get killed, been trapped beneath a black hole and seen my planet destroyed. I've been turned to stone and been attacked by living plastic, survived zombies and werewolves, and traveled across countless parallel dimensions. But none of that… none of that seems as scary as a simple white wall."

She looked up and met his eyes. "Doctor, make love to me please," she said in a small voice.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees. He easily lifted her up and sat down on the bed, pulling her into his lap and drawing her close. Fisting his jacket, she pressed her lips to his, and he kissed her back, stroking her hair and caressing her face. And slowly what began as comforting turned into longing, and desire, and need, and hunger, and they didn't sleep for a long time.


	8. Chapter Seven--The Past and the Present

**Chapter Seven—The Past and the Present**

_Soon, the Doctor thought. The latest prophecy was ‘Soon’._

_Your song is ending._

_Soon._

_He sank down on the jump seat, elbows on knees, his head in his hands, as in his mind the prophecies repeated over and over._

_Your song is ending. Soon._

_Your song is ending. Soon._

_Your song is ending. Soon._

_Soon._

_It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t ready._

_He slowly drew his hands down his face, leaned back and rested his trainers on the console, and stared up at the ceiling, wondering how long he could stay in the Vortex. After all, whatever was coming wouldn’t happen here._

_He felt a tickling in the back of his mind, and just for an instant, instead of the arched, coral ceiling of the console room he saw Pete Tyler’s face grinning down from a billboard advertising Vitex. Overhead, in a clear blue sky hung zeppelins. A telepathic vision originating from the parallel universe._

_It felt like a memory rather than something that was happening at that moment, and he was certain the contact was unintentional; he hadn’t initiated it, and he was sure his counterpart hadn’t either. Just as quickly as it had appeared the vision was gone, and he tamped down his end of the connection. He had promised not to contact them, had promised to let them, to let her go, and he was bound and determined to do just that._

_Despite his best intentions to just stay right there in the TARDIS, in the console room, on the jump seat for years if necessary, within minutes he became restless. He got up and began to pace the room; the only sounds were those of the TARDIS humming and his own trainers on the grating under his feet._

_“That’s it. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself,” he said aloud. “If I’m going to go, I’m going out with a bang. Do some of those things I’ve always meant to do. See things I’ve always meant to see but somehow never got around to. I could meet Vincent van Gogh. Go to the million year anniversary of the Great Magellan Gestalt. Take part in the pan-galactic gargle blaster drinkathon. Ski the mountains of Felspoon.” He grimaced. “Better do that before the drinkathon.”_

_Before he even realized he had done it he had set the controls. “But first…” he said. “I’ll find out why Queen Elizabeth wanted to kill me.”_

_He yanked on the lever with enthusiasm. And with a familiar metal-on-metal groaning, the TARDIS began to materialize._

~oOo~

The next morning, Rose woke to the sounds of clothes rustling. The room was still very dark, only the glimmers of the rising sun were peeking through the drapes, but she could just make out the figure of the Doctor on the other side of the room, rummaging through his suitcase. She looked blearily up at him.

“What time is it?” she asked through a yawn.

“Early,” he told her quietly. “Go back to sleep.”

She shook her head as she sat up. “No, we’ve got to get going. Get it done and over with.” She yawned again and stretched. “It’ll be faster if you had my help. Besides…” She met his eyes. “It’s time, I think.”

He looked at her in concern for a moment, and then began to smile, a soft, gentle, proud smile. His eyes crinkled at the edges.

“Yeah,” he said softly and then nodded. “It’s time.”

It wasn’t until then that she realized he was already showered and dressed. She nodded her head at their luggage. “What are you looking for?”

Now he really did grin. He pulled two objects out of the case and held them up, one in each hand. She couldn’t tell what they were so she flipped on the lamp on the table besides the bed. They both blinked a moment at the glare.

“Your alien detectors?” she asked.

“Yep, one for you and one for me,” he said, shaking them a little. “Since almost everything Torchwood has to do with aliens, when Pete called you, I decided to pack them just in case we, well, needed to identify aliens. With a few adjustments, they’ll pick up alien tech as well.”

She grinned at him as she got out of bed. “Well, while you work on that, I’ll go take a shower,” she said and headed into the en suite, dropping her pyjamas on the floor on the way.

“You can’t be doing that if you want me to work on this,” he called after her. She stuck her head out of the bathroom and gave him a cheeky grin.

“Later,” she promised.

He grinned and turned towards the door, only to be hit by a wave of dizziness. He staggered over to lean on the door frame. For a split second, instead of the room in front of him, he saw a forest floor and boot-clad feet. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out, forcing his mental shields up, and the dizziness gradually went away.

“Wizard,” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell is he up to?” 

~oOo~

_The Doctor opened the door to find the TARDIS had landed in a wide meadow between the banks of a river and a forest. The day was warm, the cloudless sky a brilliant blue. Off in the distance he could see a castle on a hill._

_He grinned. “Somewhere in the middle of the 16th century, I should say.”_

_He headed out, but before he had gone more than a hundred yards into the woods he felt a yank and a pull and found himself hanging upside down from a tree. He grimaced. His head was pounding from his upside down position and the rope of the snare he had been caught in was cutting deeply into his left ankle. As he fumbled in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, he slowly began to rotate in a circle, making him slightly dizzy._

_“Ha!” he exclaimed as he pulled his sonic out of his pocket. And then cursed as he dropped it. It noiselessly landed in the thick grass beneath him._

_After about an hour, he was rescued by a contingent of the Queen’s guards. The soldiers cut him down, and he fell to the ground in a heap._

_“Thanks,” the Doctor said brightly as he stood and brushed himself off. He picked up his sonic screwdriver, and the soldiers drew their swords._

_“You will come with us,” said the guard who was evidently in charge._

_A sword pricked him in the back. “Lovely,” the Doctor said sarcastically._

_Once at the castle, he was led into the banquet hall. At the head table sat Queen Elizabeth I. Next to her, a handsome man was whispering in her ear. She laughed, her voice ringing out throughout the large room. Nearby, a young, brunette woman was watching them unhappily._

_The Queen caught sight of them and motioned them forward, and one of the guards, a man several inches taller than he was and built like a brick wall, sharply prodded him in the back again._

_They approached the head table, and the soldiers fell to one knee. “Your Majesty, we found this man caught in a snare in the forest not a mile from here,” the guard said._

_She raised her eyebrows. “Explain yourself,” she ordered._

_The Doctor bowed deeply. “Your Majesty,” he said formally. “I’m the Doctor. Sir Doctor of TARDIS actually. I’m an ambassador… from Gallifrey.”_

_Her demeanor instantly changed. “An ambassador, say you, not a courtier, or the mouthpiece for another suitor? And from Gallifrey? I’ve never heard of it. Is that how they dress in Gallifrey? Tis very odd.” The Queen slowly looked him up and down as a small smile played around her lips. “However I have to say it does seem to flatter the form.” The man next to her glowered at him._

_“So you speak for someone else, Doctor?” she continued._

_“I usually have too many of my own words to speak for someone else, Your Majesty,” he said wryly._

_She raised an eyebrow. “Intriguing. I think I like you. Robert,” she said, turning to the man next to her, “go join your wife. I’m sure she misses you.” Robert nodded curtly, glaring at the Doctor._

_If looks could kill, the Doctor thought, I’d already be regenerating._

_Robert left, and Queen Elizabeth patted the seat next to her. “Join me, Doctor.” He sat down in the seat Robert had just vacated, and she tilted her head towards his. “Robert has been trying to make me jealous by bringing his wife to court,” she breathed into his ear. “Turnabout is fair play, don’t you think?”_

_She reached over and squeezed his leg just above his knee. Blimey, he thought, his eyes widening in surprise. And then her hand began to move higher up his thigh. And that’s when he became convinced she was an alien._

_The rest of the banquet continued the same way, with the Queen overtly flirting and Robert Dudley, for that’s who it was, continuing to shoot daggers at him. His wife Amy, however, looked pleased at the development and sat back and watched the Queen with a smug smile on her face._

_Later the Doctor was invited, although he would have used the word commanded, by the Queen to stay the night in the castle in quarters near her own chambers, and he was again escorted by the soldiers who had found him in the forest. Once they had left him in his room, he peeked out the door. The Queen’s personal guards stood in the hall outside her rooms, having the effect, to his frustration, of trapping him in his._

_As soon as he could get away, while the guards were distracted during the next morning’s shift change, he rushed back to the TARDIS. Once inside, he lifted a piece of grating on the floor, pulled out a large cardboard box and quickly began to rummage through it._

_“Where is it? Where is it?”_

_He pushed the box out of the way and grabbed another, tossing random items on the floor. “Dematerialization interface, flux capacitor, multi-loop stabilizer…” He pulled out a white paper bag filled with jelly babies and stared at it in amazement. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in this box, hasn’t it?” He pulled an orange jelly baby out and popped it in his mouth before dropping the bag back in the box and pushing the box aside._

_It wasn’t until the tenth box that he found what he was looking for._

_“HA!” he shouted in triumph. “My timey-wimey detector!” He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at a removable panel. It popped off. “Now with a few adjustments to it, it’ll be an alien detector.”_

_He worked quickly, occasionally pulling things from other boxes and connecting them to the detector. Finally, after about a half an hour, he completed it to his satisfaction and began putting the cover plate back on._

_To his surprise, the door rattled and someone began to knock. The Queen’s voice filtered through from the outside._

_“Doctor? Doctor, are you in there?”_

_Damn, he thought._

~oOo~

Sitting in the back of a limousine, Rose held the Doctor’s hand as she stared out the window. Due to the heavy traffic at that hour as well as the limited parking in Canary Wharf, Pete had hired a car and driver for the day.

At that moment he was sitting across from her, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and watching her in concern. He had known from the beginning this would be difficult for her, and now he was wondering if he had made a mistake by asking them to help with the final dismantling of Torchwood One. 

As they made their way across London, the silence felt more and more oppressive, and Pete felt more and more guilty for putting her in this situation. Finally he opened his mouth to ask Rose how she was doing but stopped when he saw the Doctor shake his head at him. 

“Tell me something, Pete,” the Doctor said in a low voice. “When you were using the dimension cannon, why didn’t you try to use it in the lever room?”

“Couple of reasons,” Pete replied quietly. “First, we weren’t certain if Torchwood One was still even there in your universe. Wouldn’t do to send Rose through just to find out she had landed over 200 meters above the ground. The second was our scientists thoroughly tested the wall and could find no sign of weakness.”

The Doctor glanced over at Rose to see what her reaction was to the conversation. She seemed to be ignoring them, so he continued. “Doesn’t sound like Rose to just trust some random scientists with that.”

“She didn’t. She examined the data herself with the help of one of the scientists from Torchwood Three… after it had been collected by several people she trusted implicitly.” At the Doctor’s questioning glance, Pete said, “Jake, Mickey, and I went in and did a second set of scans and came up with the same results. Then the cracks started appearing everywhere, and we didn’t need to try to use the ones in Torchwood One or in Norway.”

Rose tried to ignore the discussion in favor of watching the damp London streets go by. It was raining, not an unusual occurrence in London at any time of the year, and people from all walks of life were bundled against the cold, colorful umbrellas seeming to be the only source of color on this dreary day. Even the red of the double decker buses and the green of the stoplights seemed muted.

Eventually they pulled up to Torchwood Tower, more than an hour after they had left the mansion. Pete got out first, followed by the Doctor who then helped Rose out of the car.

Not noticing the rain, she stood and stared up at the tall steel and glass building, one of the tallest in the country, and for a moment she felt small. Tiny. Insignificant. She no longer was Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth, Stuff of Legend, Valiant Child. No, now she felt as she had before she met the Doctor: Rose Tyler, shop girl, aimless teenager with no A-Levels and no future.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Rose felt the Doctor gently squeeze her hand. She looked up at him to see him smiling down at her. She smiled back and nodded, and they entered Torchwood One.

Rose’s stomach clenched anxiously. By unspoken agreement, she knew they were going to start with the lever room. Advanced tech was more likely to be there than anywhere else in the building other than the lab. It made sense, she told herself, to get it out of the way. And maybe that way she could get rid of the sense of dread that threatened to overwhelm her.

The trip up in the lift seemed to take forever, although they had really arrived at the top floor within moments. At the door to the lever room, the Doctor stopped and Rose looked up at him to see him looking down at her in concern.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Rose nodded.

“It’s not too late to back out,” he said. “Neither of us will think any less of you.”

“No,” she said firmly, and her determination was clear in her voice. “Let’s do this.”

Letting go of his hand, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Unlike the last time she had been here, the room was totally empty. There were no computers, no desks; not even a stray paperclip was on the floor. The levers, which had never been used this side of the Void, were gone. Even the glass enclosed office was completely vacant. 

Rose slowly made her way to the far side of the room, to the hated white wall. Once there, she closed her eyes and rested her hand on it. For a moment she was taken back to the last time she had been here, when she had been trapped here with the Doctor on the other side. And as much as she knew he was here with her, in this very room, part of him wasn’t. Part of him was still on the other side of that wall.

With a sense that wasn’t sight, wasn’t hearing, she suddenly realized the Doctor had joined her. She opened her eyes and turned to him, and he took her hand.

“It’s just a wall,” he said quietly. “Nothing more, nothing less. Just a wall.”

He squeezed her hand before letting go, and then he pulled his alien detectors out of his pockets.

“Where did you have those?” Pete asked in surprise as he came up behind them.

The Doctor just grinned as he handed the smaller one to Rose.

“His pockets are bigger on the inside,” she said.

Pete opened his mouth… and then abruptly shut it. He shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“All set?” the Doctor asked her.

She nodded. He moved to turn on his alien detector, and all of a sudden she was overwhelmed with a sense of panic.

Wait!” she shouted, and his hand stilled. “I mean, uh, what if there still is alien tech here? What if the Cybermen managed to hide something in here? Or what if, by accident, we manage to trigger the Void opening again?”

“Rose…” the Doctor began.

“But…” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know. I’m being ridiculous. It’s just... this room...”

“It’ll be fine,” he told her.

“Okay. Yeah. It’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Okay.”

“Alright?” he said. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

On three both flipped the switches on their Doctor-made equipment, and the boxes both started to hum. But nothing else. Despite the Doctor’s assurances, Rose half-expected something to happen, at best an alarm to go off, at worst… well, she didn’t want to think about the worst case scenario. 

But nothing happened.

They both scanned the room thoroughly, high, low, in corners, along the floor, near electrical outlets and throughout the glass-enclosed office. And the wall itself. But not a blip. Finally they both turned the scanning devices off.

“Nothing here,” he said. “Not alien tech, not advanced human technology…” He met Rose’s eyes. “And not even a weakness in the universe’s wall.” He paused for a second to let that sink in. They had both known the walls between the universes were sealed, but there were two places on Earth where the wall had been thin, and this was one of them, the other being Bad Wolf Bay. They had already known that the other had been tightly sealed by the Time Lord Doctor; this was the confirmation that this one was as well. There was no way back, not for either of them, and for a moment he felt a wave of guilt at his relief of that fact.

He turned to Pete. “Anyway, these have a range of a quarter mile or more, so it’s unlikely that there’s anything in the building, but we’ll still check every floor just to make sure.”

They spent the rest of the day searching the building, from the rest of the top floor to every last sub-basement. To their relief, they found nothing anywhere.

“Pete, the whole building’s clean,” the Doctor said as they waited in the lobby for their car. While he spoke, he jammed both of the alien detectors in the same suit jacket pocket. Even Rose, who had seen him do it before and was used to it, was amazed they both managed to fit through the small opening of his pocket as well as didn’t cause the pocket to bulge with its bulky contents. “Your staff did a good job of decommissioning the building.” 

Both Rose and Pete noticed he began to stretch his right hand, extending the fingers wide and wiggling them a little, before he began to massage it. He didn’t seem to realize he was doing it. 

The car arrived, and as Rose and the Doctor climbed in the back, Pete elected to sit in front with the driver. Rose and her stepfather exchanged meaningful glances, and she knew he was just trying to give her some time alone with the Doctor. 

“Thanks, Dad,” she mouthed, and Pete nodded.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” she asked once they were underway. When he looked puzzled, she nodded at his hand. He dropped it almost guiltily. 

“Fine,” he said brightly.

“No… contact?”

“Contact?” 

“Contact, you know, of a telepathic nature?”

“No!” he said, almost too quickly. “Well, not exactly no, but not yes either.”

“What do you mean, not exactly no, but not yes?”

He hesitated, as if he was debating what to say, or whether he should say anything at all. “Well,” he eventually said as he pulled on his ear thoughtfully, “it’s like the connection is open but no one’s there.”

Her heart clenched tightly in fear, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Is there something wrong with him? Is he…”

“No,” he reassured her. “If there was something wrong like that, if he had died or even regenerated, there wouldn’t be a link at all. But this… this is something different. And I don’t know what.”


	9. Chapter Eight--The Golden Goddess

**Chapter Eight—The Golden Goddess**

That evening, just after dinner, the Doctor fulfilled his promise to Tony to read to him. 

When he entered the little boy’s bedroom, Tony was already sitting in bed waiting for him. 

“So,” the Doctor said, pulling up a chair to sit in, “what would you like me to read?” 

Tony picked up a book from his nightstand and handed it to him. Suddenly, the Doctor understood the human expression of feeling like someone was walking over his grave.

_Coincidence_ , the Doctor told himself. _This is a children’s classic. No reason to think there is anything more to it than that._

“Are you certain you want me to read this one?” he asked.

Tony nodded vigorously. “ ‘S my favorite.”

“Alright,” the Doctor said, and he began to read. “Once upon a time, there were three little pigs…”

Adept at mimicry, the Doctor used distinctly different voices for all the characters, much to Tony’s delight.

“Again!” he demanded when the Doctor had finished.

“Are you sure you want this one again?” the Doctor asked.

“Yep!” he answered.

“My turn now,” Pete said from the doorway after the Doctor had read the story three times. “Let’s give the Doctor a break, yeah? Otherwise, he’s not gonna want to read to you again.” Tony nodded. “Now why don’t you say thank you.”

Tony threw himself into the Doctor’s arms and buried his face in his chest. “Thank you,” he said, his voice sounding muffled.

“Oh, you’re very welcome,” he replied, hugging back.

The Doctor left father and son and joined Rose in their room. She was already curled up in bed. Despite the room being warm, she had the covers pulled tightly up to her chin. 

He began to undress but stopped when he spotted an open bottle of Vitex next to her.

“Been waiting for you.” She reached out from beneath the duvet and patted his side of the bed, but he didn’t respond. Her brow furrowed. “What is it?” she asked.

“I just realized I forgot something,” he told her. “I meant to ask Pete about Vitex’s new slogan, but with the whole business of checking Torchwood One, I forgot. It’ll just take a sec. Be right back.” As he left the room, Rose burrowed back under the covers.

Back outside Tony’s door, the Doctor was startled when he heard the end of the story Pete was telling his son.

“And the Golden Goddess said, ‘The two shall be reunited,’ and they were. And they lived happily ever after. The end.”

He heard them say their goodnights, and Pete quietly left the room, closing the door partway behind him. He was surprised to see the Doctor standing there waiting for him and said so.

“Pete, what story were you reading just there?” the Doctor asked, ignoring the comment. “Can I see it?”

“I wasn’t reading a book,” Pete told him. “It’s just a story from my childhood. When I was a kid, we had this big book, _Tales of the Golden Goddess_ , and my mum and dad used to read to me from it all the time. Book’s lost now, but I can still remember some of the stories. Tony loves them, that one in particular.”

“What’s it about?”

Pete shrugged. “It’s just your typical fairy tale. It’s about two people who have been separated a long time, and the Golden Goddess brings them back together.”

The Doctor pursed his lips. “You used the phrase ‘the two shall be reunited’. Is that in the original story?”

“Did I?” Pete snorted. “I don’t know. I doubt it. Guess I got that on the brain these days with the new slogan and all.”

“Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask you why you changed Vitex’s slogan? What does ‘the two shall be reunited’ have to do with Vitex? Doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

“Actually, that’s what I thought at first too. The background is that Vitex sales were going down, way down, partially because people were bored with the flavors. So we decided to go back to something I did at the beginning when I first started selling it. Back then, in addition to the straight flavors, I was selling these blends, strawberry-banana, pineapple-orange, watermelon-kiwi, but they weren’t selling as well so I discontinued them. We decided to bring them back. ‘Strawberry and banana: the two shall be reunited.’ ‘Orange and pineapple: the two shall be reunited.’” 

“But why those exact words?” the Doctor asked.

“Can’t really remember,” he said. “It was just of those things people say. I think they call it a meme. It was all over the place, so we decided to use it.”

“Huh,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. 

Pete began to head downstairs, but the Doctor didn’t follow.

“Coming?” Pete asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “Rose has already gone to bed,” he said. 

Pete gave him a knowing look. “Well, goodnight then.”

“Night, Pete,” he replied. Once Rose’s stepfather was out of sight, the Doctor quickly pulled his rarely used mobile out of a pocket.

It was picked up on the fifth ring.

_“Hello?”_ Toshiko said, panting.

“Tosh, I need you to look something up for me,” he said.

_“Look something up? Now?”_ she asked, still breathless.

“If at all possible,” he told her. “Why?”

_“Well, it’s just that I’m a little busy at the moment.”_

The Doctor heard Owen swear loudly in the background. _“Can’t he do it himself?”_

“No,” he answered quietly. “I have reasons I don’t want to do it here.”

_“So what is it?”_ Tosh asked wearily.

“I need you to research any and all references to the phrase ‘the two shall be reunited’ and someone called the Golden Goddess.”

_“How fast do you need it?”_ she asked.

“As soon as possible,” he told her.

_“Bloody hell,”_ interjected Owen.

_“Well, if I try to do it here, it’ll take a little time,”_ Tosh told the Doctor.

_“So you’ll have to bloody well wait until she gets to work tomorrow morning,”_ Owen told him forcefully and then hung up on him.

The Doctor stared thoughtfully at the mobile for a moment before placing it back in his pocket and heading to his room.

~oOo~

_“Bad wolf girl…” the Doctor murmured._

_The Doctor slowly began to awaken, trying desperately to cling to the tendrils of his dream, but despite his best efforts it disappeared._

_He opened his eyes and groaned. He was lying face down on the floor of the console room, the grating pressing painfully into his face. But that was nothing compared to the head-splitting headache he had._

_Swearing under his breath, he slowly sat up and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. He stuck his tongue out and grimaced._

_“Bleh. My mouth tastes like I was eating Mickey’s socks.”_

_He slowly got up and immediately regretted it as the pain in his head increased and his stomach lurched. He made his way to the jump seat and sank down on it._

_“How did I end up on the floor? I was… Where was I?” He suddenly realized he couldn’t remember. What’s more, there were huge gaps where his recent memories should be._

_“Let’s see,” he said, closing his eyes so he could focus on his memories. “I was…”_

_Small glimpses of his recent activities began to filter into his consciousness._

_Queen Elizabeth I._

_Zygons._

_Something about a rabbit?_

_And…_

_His eyes flew open. “Blimey, did I marry her?” He grimaced. “Why on Earth would I have done that? I must have been out of my mind.” Deciding he really needed to scan himself for alien influences, or possibly evidence of a psychotic break, he reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver…_

_And pulled out a medallion._

_“I guess I made it to the drinkathon after all,” he said. “But third place? I only got third place? Based on how I feel, I would have thought at least second.”_

~oOo~

“Rose…” the Doctor murmured. 

The Doctor slowly began to awaken, trying desperately to cling to the tendrils of his dream, but despite his best efforts it disappeared.

He opened his eyes and groaned. He was lying face down on the bed, and his head was throbbing. Painfully, he turned his head and reached for Rose…

But she wasn’t there. _She must have already gotten up_ , he thought.

Swearing under his breath, he slowly sat up and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples in an effort to keep his head from exploding. He stuck his tongue out and grimaced.

“Bleh. My mouth tastes like I was eating Mickey’s socks.”

He slowly got up and immediately regretted it as impossibly the pain in his head increased. His stomach lurched. He sank back down on the bed.

It wasn’t the first time he had had a hangover, so he immediately recognized the signs, but the odd thing was he hadn’t had anything to drink the night before. In fact, he remembered, he and Rose had gone to bed early. Right after…

Right after he had spoken to Tosh on the phone.

And she was going to call him this morning. 

Ignoring the pain and dizziness, he reached for his mobile. No missed calls. Knowing Toshiko would call eventually, he turned it to silent mode. Until he knew exactly what was going on, he didn’t want to worry Rose. She had been upset enough last night, what with facing the lever room yesterday.

He yawned. Unsurprisingly, they had both had nightmares about being separated, and neither of them had gotten much sleep. But since the business with Torchwood One was done, they really needed to return to Cardiff today.

Gritting his teeth against the pounding in his head, he got up and headed to the shower.

~oOo~

Downstairs in the kitchen, Jackie was pouring Rose a cup of tea.

“So how are you this morning?” she asked.

Rose shrugged.

“You don’t fool me,” Jackie said. “I know it was tough going back there. It’d be good for you to talk about it.”

Rose sat quietly for a moment, staring into her tea as her hands cupped her mug. She took a deep breath.

“It was tough,” she said quietly. “Tougher than I thought it would be.” She sniffed. “It just brought back all these… feelings, feelings I had thought I was over. Especially since…”

“Especially since himself is here,” her mother finished. 

“It’s just… but I just… Sometimes I…”

“Sometimes you miss the other him.”

Rose nodded. “I mean, I know it’s wrong and all, but I just can’t help it.”

“It’s okay to still miss him.” Jackie reached over, took her hand and squeezed it. “Your dad’s been gone for more than twenty-five years now, an’ even though I love this Pete with all my heart an’ I’ve been married to him longer than I was with yer dad, I still miss yer dad every single day.”

Rose looked at her mother in surprise. “You never told me that.”

“Maybe I should of,” Jackie told her. “But I don’t know if you would have understood it before.”

“Maybe not,” Rose admitted. “But I do now.”

~oOo~

_Hands plunged in his trouser pockets, the Doctor walked through the Carnival barely taking in his surroundings. There were displays of historical and scientific significance from all over the galaxy: the xenon crystal monolith, standing forty meters tall and capable of relaying sub-warp transmissions across the galaxy in minutes; the great, ultraviolet, uni-horned Rathrenkep; the glowing flutterwing; the parchment of Poon, but he hardly noticed any of it._

_He sighed. Why was he even here?_

_Directly ahead of him was the Phosphorous Carousel. It was slowly spinning, allowing people of all shapes, sizes, and species to get on and off without it stopping. Periodically and without warning the entire thing would burst into flame, its occupants only protected from the inferno by the fire-retardant overalls they were required to wear._

_“Rose would have loved that,” the Doctor said to himself softly as he watched it burn for a moment. He frowned. No, he had promised himself he’d truly let her go, and that meant he had to stop thinking about her all the time._

_But he wasn’t really sure this regeneration was capable of that._

_Well, if his song truly was ending, he wouldn’t have to worry about that soon, because he knew that although he’d always love her, regardless of incarnation, the knife wound of being apart from her would begin to heal with regenerating._

_Assuming he did regenerate of course, rather than just dying outright._

_But if he didn’t regenerate, he wouldn’t have to worry about it, he supposed._

_He stopped at a vendor selling all sorts of treats and bought a cone of some sort of berry flavored candy floss. As he walked, he picked off chunks of the fluffy stuff and shoved it in his mouth, unaware that it was staining his fingers and teeth a bright shade of pink._

_Up ahead, a crowd had gathered in front of one of the booths. As one, they let out a cry of disappointment. Mildly curious, the Doctor made his way through the crowd to the front._

_It was a game. On the counter in front of him lay ten cricket balls while at the far side of the booth, metal objects in a variety of shapes moved forward on a conveyor belt._

_“You, sir,” the barker said to him. “You look like you’ve got a good arm on you. Fancy a go?”_

_“Why not?” the Doctor said, shrugging._

_“Okay, it’s based on an old Earth game. The object of the game is to knock down eight items on the far wall. You’ve got ten chances to do it in. But to make it tougher…” The barker flipped a switch on the counter and the targets began to move faster. “With every throw, the targets speed up. If you’re successful, you win a prize.” He motioned grandly at a shelf on the opposite side of the booth that contained a variety of inexpensive-looking items. In front of it stood a scantily-clad young woman.“Do it in eight, you win three, as well as a kiss from the lovely Thorinia. Ready?”_

_The Doctor nodded._

_“Go!”_

_The Doctor picked up several of the wooden balls. He threw three times, knocking three down immediately, and the objects began to whiz past at breakneck speed. He threw five more balls in rapid succession, knocking down the rest of the required objects, and the crowd behind him began to applaud._

_The barker gaped at him. “I’ve never seen anyone do that so fast,” he said slowly. “Thorinia, get him his prizes.”_

_The young woman sized him up and then took two items off the shelf behind her. She crossed to him, at the same time gesturing for him to bend over. The Doctor bent down, and she placed a bright pink lei around his neck, kissing him on the cheek as she did so. She then placed a straw hat on his head._

_The Doctor stood up again and raised an eyebrow. “I thought I got three prizes,” he said._

_“The third prize is a message from the Gestalt itself,” she said in a low, seductive voice. She crooked a finger, gesturing for him to come closer, and then whispered in his ear._

_“It’s time.”_

_Both hearts pounding, the Doctor backed up and stared at her, horrified. Then he swallowed nervously._

_Message delivered, she returned to her spot next to the prizes. The Doctor continued to back away. Once free of the crowd, he strode quickly back to the TARDIS while behind him the barker began to call again._

_“Did you see how easy it is?” he said. “If that skinny man wearing the pinstriped suit can do it, anyone can. Now who’s next? It’s time for the next person. It’s time!”_

~oOo~

Immediately after breakfast, the Doctor and Rose left for home amidst reminders from Jackie that they were expected back at the mansion in a couple of weeks to celebrate Christmas.

As soon as they were underway, Rose fell sound asleep. Glancing over at her, the Doctor smiled. When he had come down to breakfast, Rose and Jackie had been in the kitchen talking. Evidently whatever Jackie had said to her had been helpful, because for the first time since Pete had mentioned the lever room, Rose looked relaxed and truly at peace.

They hadn’t quite left London when his mobile quietly buzzed. Not wishing to wake up Rose, he quickly answered it. “Hi, Tosh,” he said softly.

Toshiko’s voice came over the speaker.

_“Doctor, I’ve got the information you asked for,”_ she said. _“You were asking about the phrase ‘the two shall be reunited’. Vitex is currently using it to promote its new line of fruit blend energy drinks.”_

“That much I knew,” the Doctor told her. “But Pete said they’d gotten the slogan from some sort of meme.”

_“Yes,”_ she said. _“Although there’s nothing particularly special about the saying, those exact words were said by a late night talk show host a few months ago as part of his monologue. He was referring to a celebrity couple that had recently broken up and that no one expected to get back together. His comment, ‘the two shall be reunited’, was meant to be funny, but ironically the next day the couple announced their engagement. After that, the saying took off and now it’s everywhere.”_

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “How long ago did you say that happened?”

_“Let me look it up.”_ Toshiko fell silent for a moment. _“It looks like it was just over five months ago.”_

“Five months? Are you certain it was five months?” he asked. His mind immediately flashed back to Rose’s impromptu celebration just a matter of days earlier.

_“You know,” he said, “you never told me what we were celebrating.”_

_She looked up at him and gave him a wide smile. “It’s been exactly five months since I found you again.”_

Tosh’s voice brought him back to the present. _“Yes, just over five months.”_

“Thanks for doing that for me, Tosh,” he said. “Would you mind just keeping it between us for a little bit?”

_“No problem,”_ she said. _“‘The two shall be reunited.’ Sounds pretty romantic. Does it have anything to do with Rose’s Christmas present?”_ When he didn’t answer immediately, she laughed. _“Never mind. You don’t have to tell me. Don’t want me to accidentally ruin the surprise, right?”_

“Yeah, something like that,” he said. 

He turned, and he caught sight of a billboard advertising strawberry banana Vitex, startling him so much he swerved and only narrowly avoided causing an accident. At the jerking motion, Rose stirred for a moment and then fell back asleep. Heart pounding, he pulled over to the side of the road and stared at the sign in front of him.

_“Doctor, did you still want the information on the Golden Goddess?”_ Tosh asked.

“Uh, yeah, Tosh,” he said absently. “Go ahead.” While he watched, Pete Tyler’s image grinned at him. 

_“The Golden Goddess first appeared in legends around three thousand years ago. She was also known as the Goddess of Time, the Protector of Briton and Wales, and the Defender of the Earth. She’s usually described as being a beautiful woman with blonde hair and golden eyes, but she has also been depicted as a large, golden wolf.”_

On the billboard, Pete lifted a bottle of the bright pink liquid in a toast and then winked while across the top of the sign flashed the words ‘the two shall be reunited’. 

But the Doctor noticed none of it. Instead, his heart pounded as his eyes were drawn to two words that someone had painted across the bottom right-hand corner of the sign.

BAD WOLF


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_Far above the Earth, the TARDIS floated as if it were suspended in space. Its doors were wide open and the Doctor sat in the doorway, wearing a pink lei around his neck. Beside him lay the straw hat he had won at the Carnival of the Great Magellan Gestalt. In front of him his long legs hung out into apparent nothingness with only the TARDIS’s force field protecting him from the vacuum of space._

_Below him lay London, a city he spent so much time in that it had practically become his adopted hometown. If he looked hard, he might even be able to pick out the location of Big Ben, where the Slitheen had crashed a ship a lifetime ago, well, a lifetime for him at any rate. He knew he’d be able to pick out the general location of Ealing, where Sarah Jane and her son Luke lived, or Chiswick, where Donna was. Or even Peckham, where the Powell Estate was located and where…_

_No, she wasn’t there. She was gone._

_And happy, he told himself. With his meta-crisis self. Living a life one day at a time, together for the rest of their lives._

_A life he had so desperately wanted. Still wanted, if he were perfectly honest with himself._

_The one adventure he could never have._

_Sometimes he was so jealous of his meta-crisis self._

_For a moment, the Doctor allowed himself to remember what it had been like to be with her. Meeting her at Henrik’s. Seeing how beautiful she was the first time they went to Cardiff, when he had first realized he was falling in love with her. Her overtly flirting with him during WW II, and dancing around the console with her after everyone had lived._

_And more recent memories. Flirting with her in Scotland. The sight of her in that pink dress. Flirting at the Olympics._

_Her promising him forever._

_Seeing her for the first time after she had returned from the parallel universe._

_And of course seeing her emerge from the TARDIS as Bad Wolf._

_The image of almost losing her to the Void forced its way into his mind, and he roughly shoved it out. No, he wouldn’t think about that now. Nor would he think about saying goodbye to her on the beach… or the sight of her kissing the other him. This was about remembering the happy times, remembering the joy, not the pain._

_And above everything else, Rose Tyler had brought him joy._

_He knew he’d always love her, no matter the incarnation, but this him, this incarnation, was born out of love for her. Was born to love. Was born to love her, and nothing else, no one else, had been able to fill the void created in his hearts when she had been lost to him._

_But even though this incarnation had been born to love her, the meta-crisis him, with his part human body and his mortality, had been created not only to love her but to be with her. When he had begun to regenerate after being wounded by the Dalek, he had had only one thought in his mind: he wanted to stay with her in his current form. And his meta-crisis self could do exactly that._

_He wondered if his other self had figured that out. He doubted it. Other him would only have the technology of Pete’s World which was not nearly advanced enough to do an analysis of Time Lord genetics. He, on the other hand, had had the TARDIS to help him, to analyze his other self and compare him to Rose. In the chaos between the destruction of the Crucible and returning the Earth to its proper orbit, he had secretly scanned his counterpart and the TARDIS had given him the answer almost instantly. Somehow that him had been created for her, tailor made as it were, designed down to the smallest detail: still part Time Lord so that he could maintain his own consciousness, retain who he was without having a neural implosion as Donna had almost had, yet human enough to be with her in every way. Human enough to age alongside of her. Even human enough to have children together if they wanted. Naturally, without medical intervention._

_A fresh wave of jealousy threatened to overtake him, one he quickly tamped down. Part of him was with her, part of him was happy, part of him had had his dream fulfilled, and that was, that had to be, good enough._

_No matter how painful missing her was for this him._

_It still hurt, missing her, particularly now after seeing her, and losing her, again. It was a physical ache that began in his hearts and went bone deep, just like it had the first time he had lost her. But then he had had Donna and then Martha to pull him back from despair._

_Now there was no one._

_It had been his choice, he knew that, he had had plenty of opportunities to have new companions, but every time the situation had presented itself he had refused, believing that it would be too painful when they inevitably left. He had thought it would be easier on his hearts to travel alone._

_Instead, between losing part of himself in the meta-crisis and traveling alone he was slowly going mad. If nothing else, his behavior on Mars had proven that. He had become a danger to the universe and a danger to himself, and nothing he had done since then had shown he was any less dangerous now than he had been then. Ironic, that, since dangerous was what he had accused his meta-crisis self of being. But his counterpart had Rose to make him better._

_He had no one._

_He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment._

_The Ood had said his song was ending, and he had run. Run as far and as fast as he could. But it hadn’t helped. As the old saying went, you can’t run away from yourself._

_No matter where you go, there you are._

_It was time to stop running. Even if it meant regeneration. Or even if it meant his death._

_He drew his hands across his face. And then with heavy hearts he got to his feet, shoved the straw hat back on his head and walked to the console to set the coordinates for the Ood homeworld. And the doors to the TARDIS closed behind him._


End file.
